


Hymn to the Sea

by SevenSoulmates



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Titanic Fusion, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Helena and Ramon Bashing, I repeat: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, Inspired by Titanic (1997), M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Minor Character Death, OOC Shannon Diaz, Shannon Bashing, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, Titanic References, it's not that explicit tbh, minor period typical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 51,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29672961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenSoulmates/pseuds/SevenSoulmates
Summary: It was the unsinkable ship of dreams to everyone else. To Eddie, it was a slave ship, taking him and his son back to America in chains.
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tkreyesevandiaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/gifts), [woodchoc_magnum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodchoc_magnum/gifts).



> Warnings and Notes:
> 
> This IS a Titanic AU. If you haven't seen the movie in the past 24 years since its release, or are unfamiliar with the history of the sinking, PLEASE heed the warnings because there WILL be Major Character Death in this fic. 
> 
> I tried to be as historically accurate as possible (to my own capability which I admit is limited), but I'm sure there are many slip ups, so please just ignore any inaccuracies please! Some things are purposefully historically inaccurate, such as the amount of characters of color in first class aboard a predominately white ship and some of the things said about Christopher's cerebral palsy (please peep the 'ableism' tag).
> 
> Regarding the "Shannon Bashing" tag. Unfortunately, she is the Cal of this story, who is a main antagonist. Her character in this story is not wholly indicative of her character in 911 canon, nor is it reflective of my opinions of her. She is purposefully exaggerated and OOC. Her and Eddie's relationship is also pretty OOC. I completely understand if this puts you off reading this story.
> 
> Minor point, in case of any confusion: for the purposes of this story, I switched Harry and May's canon ages. Harry is now older than May. 
> 
> Lastly SUPER HUGE THANK YOU to woodchoc_magnum (for being amazing and supportive and for helping me SO MUCH with your infinite Titanic knowledge) and to tkreyesevandiaz for always ALWAYS being there to help me or just talk and also for always being THEE ultimate hype man. You both rule.

**_August 4th, 1994_ **

Sometimes Chimney gets bored of looking out at the endless sea. He’s seen all kinds of aquatic life, anything and everything that the mind could conjure, and none of it thrills him. He’s a researcher by nature, but not a marine biologist. Still it’s good to know what kind of creatures could erode man made artifacts that fell to the bottom of the ocean hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years ago. That’s all important and pertinent information. Chimney’s true calling is an explorer. 

That determination was what led him and his crew to searching out the remains of the RMS _ Titanic.  _ They weren’t the first to discover the ship's wreckage, far from it, but it had taken years of lobbying to get the funding he needed to explore what was left of the  _ Titanic.  _ Really, his benefactor was mostly interested in one thing, the same thing that Chimney was interested in.

The Heart of the Ocean.

“That is one big damn rock,” Hen had whistled when he had first gotten her on board with being his right-hand woman in his research team.

“And it’s worth millions, Hen,  _ millions _ .” Chimney told her.

“Mmm, I’m sure Karen wouldn’t mind millions.”

“It was last known owned by the Kelley family in 1910. Rupert M. Kelley purchased it to give to his son-in-law to give  _ back  _ to his own daughter as an anniversary present, ain’t that rich? They were one of the wealthiest first-class families to sail aboard the  _ Titanic  _ on its maiden voyage.”

“First class,” Hen hummed. “Meaning they likely lived.”

“Kelley’s daughter survived, but she didn’t have the jewel in her possession. Her in-laws survived too. The rest of the family, including Rupert, his son-in-law and his grandson perished. There are no records of them making it to New York.”

Which means the Heart of the Ocean is still somewhere on the  _ Titanic.  _ And Chimney is determined to find it.

Years of research went into this project. The team finally assembled, everything paid for, and their coordinates clear, they took off. After weeks of sailing, they found exactly where they needed to be, hovering meters above the bottom of the ocean where the wreckage lay. After deploying their robot submarines, they stayed glued to their screens, watching as the subs descended and finally made their way through the remains.The subs landed on the roof of the officer’s quarters, before descending down through the empty column where the Grand Staircase had once stood and into the hull. It made its way past the dining room, decomposed and cracked. Parts of the chandeliers were still intact. Boots and glasses, porcelain dishes, all items that wouldn’t rust or decompose under water still whole as if not a single day had passed since their owners used them. 

Then they come upon the first class cabins, specifically, the one they knew the Kelley’s used as their personal private suites. The room was trashed, most of the walls crushed, the doors fallen and debris lining the floor.

They had to navigate the drones, pushing past the debris, until they found it. 

The safe. This  _ had  _ to be where Kelley kept the Heart of the Ocean. Bringing it up to the surface of their vessel wasn’t hard, and they cracked that bad boy open like it was nothing.

The Heart of the Ocean was nowhere to be found. 

But what they did find, oddly enough, was a sketchbook. It was sealed and bound in leather, so despite the grime, their restoration expert, Maddie, was able to fully unearth some of the drawings. To put it mildly, they were _ extraordinary. _

One drawing in particular stood out the most. It was a drawing of a man, a naked man at that. And around his neck, he wore a jewel necklace. The Heart of the motherfucking Ocean. And at the very bottom it was signed.

_ EB April 15th 1912.  _

The very same day the ship went down.

“I’ll be goddamned.”

Whoever this man was, they had to find him, because around his neck he wore the key to their futures.

The first step was to publicize the shit out of that drawing. The hunt for “EB” or whoever the man in the drawing was, was well under way. His benefactors sprung for a camera crew to be flown out to their vessel to interview them and help blast the drawing all over the world. Who knew who could be watching and recognize it.

It took a few days, but they were gearing up to launch another sub down to look in some of the other Kelley suites, when a phone call came in. Maddie was the one to find him, telling him he was going to want to take this call from an old man claiming to know who the man in the drawing was.

“What’s his name?” Chimney asks Maddie before he picks up.

“Eddie,” Maddie says, then with a pinch in her forehead she says, “Eddie Buckley.”

“He has the same last name as you?”

Maddie shrugs. “It’s kind of a common last name?”

“Weird.” Chimney murmurs. “Eddie Buckley...think he could be EB?”

“Maybe, but we won’t know unless you pick up the phone, Chim.”

“Alright, alright.” He picks up the phone. “This is Chimney Han, how can I help you, Mr. Buckley?”

A frail, deep voice comes over the line. “Yes, I was just wondering if you had found the heart of the ocean yet, Mr. Han?”

Chimney’s eyes widen, looking over at Maddie who nods with a satisfied smirk. They hadn’t publicized anything about the necklace or the fact that their entire quest was to find it, and not just an expedition to find  _ Titanic  _ artifacts.

“Alright, you have my attention, Eddie,” Chimney says with a laugh. “Can you tell me who the man in the picture is?”

There’s a sweet laugh on the other end. “Of course. The man in the picture is me.”

*

They fly Eddie Buckley out by helicopter exactly two days later. 

“I don’t know about this, Chim,” Hen says, following him as they make their way out to the deck where the helicopter is scheduled to land. “How do we know this guy is legit? Edmundo Diaz died on the  _ Titanic  _ when he was 26. If he had lived, he’d be over a hundred by now.”

“108 next month.”

Hen shakes her head. “It’s just too convenient. I don’t like it, and I don’t think we should pin all our hopes on flying the man out here.”

Chimney stops, staring Henrietta down as he anchors her with his hands to her shoulders. “Hen. Listen to me.  _ Millions  _ on the line. We at least gotta try.”

With that he turns around and continues walking, Hen dragging her feet behind him. 

“Besides, if the old fart doesn’t have any useful information then we’re back to square one and we’ll continue searching the wreckage.”

Hen groans and rolls her eyes. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But for the record, I never approved of this plan.”

The helicopter carrying their jackpot touches down and Chimney is right there to greet the old man in the wheelchair. He really isn’t anything like Chim had been expecting. He doesn’t know why he had pictured just a barely wrinkled version of the young man in the picture. The grandpa in front of him looks aged beyond his time. But hey, surviving the  _ Titanic _ sinking would do that to a person.

A young woman with soft brown-blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail hops off the helicopter right after the old man. Hmm, a package deal he supposes.

“Mr. Buckley, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I trust your helicopter escort was pleasant?”

Chimney bends over to put himself at eye level with the man, but what he finds throws Chimney off yet again. The man’s face may have aged a hundred years but his eyes haven’t aged a day. They are exactly the same as the eyes drawn in the picture. They have the same twinge of sadness, but with an edge of acceptance. Like the man had known deep loss, even before the RMS  _ Titanic _ went down. 

And, holy shit, did the artist have some talent. 

For once, it isn’t only the Heart of the Ocean capturing his interest. 

“Call me Eddie, Mr. Han,” Eddie smiles at him gently, like it’s an effort to lift the muscles in his face into a smile, but he is happy to do so anyway. He shakes Chimney’s hand, firm and unyielding. Routine. 

“Only if you call me Chimney,” he insists. “Or Chim. Whichever you prefer.”

Eddie’s eyes sparkle. It really isn’t something he expected out of this man who sits with a military rigidity to his posture. 

“There’s a story there, I’m sure,” Eddie comments. 

“There always is,” Chim agrees. He turns to the younger woman at his side. “And who’s this?”

“Evangeline Buckley,” Eddie turns to her with a look of adoration, patting her hand gently between both of his when she reaches for it, almost like a habit between the two of them. “My granddaughter.”

Ah. The caretaker. She uses her other hand to shake Chimney’s nearly as firmly as Eddie’s. “Call me Evie.”

“Well, Evie.” He turns to Eddie. “Eddie. If you’ll come with me. I think there’s something you might be interested to see, huh?”

The pair of them follow behind Chimney, Evie pushing Eddie’s wheelchair at a relatively normal pace. Hen tentatively watches the pair as they follow along through the ship to the laboratory where they have the drawing sitting in a see-through case.

“Here we are!” Chimney claps his hands. “Where the magic happens.”

An assistant brings the glass case with the picture in it forward, setting it down on a table in front of all of them.

Evie makes a surprised noise. “Abuelito...that’s really you?”

Eddie snorts with amusement. “That’s me, all right.”

“You were gorgeous,” the lab assistant sighs. When everyone turns to look at her, she gulps and slowly backs away with a soft apology on her lips. 

Hen shakes her head, muttering “interns.”

Eddie, graciously, shakes it off. Like maybe he was used to this. 

“Well, you did basically look like an Adonis,” Chimney finally says. “She’s not wrong about that.”

“And what happened, right?” Eddie asks with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“Abuelito, you’re still handsome,” Evie says, but Eddie waves her off. 

“Those days were a long long time ago,” he says. “I’ve changed a lot since then. It almost feels like looking at a different person.”

The room is dead quiet other than the sounds of the crew outside the lab and the ship’s inner workings keeping them all afloat. Eddie stares at the drawing, a faraway look in his eyes. Like he was reliving a past life. Eons and eons past.

“Mr. Buckley…” Hen starts gently. “This drawing is signed  _ EB April 14th 1912.  _ Is that you...Eddie Buckley?”

Eddie shakes his head sharply. “No, uh...Those days I went by another name.”

“Diaz,” Chimney nods. “One of the first Mexican clans to make a name for themselves in the world of metal trade in Britain.”

Eddie sighs. “Yeah. Uh....that was my father's legacy. Not mine.”

“That’s what doesn’t make sense to me,” Hen plows on, not even stuttering when Chimney gives her a harsh look. “You had a name for yourself, for your family. You were married to Shannon Kelley, right? She lived, according to the records. You died. So how is it that you turn up nearly ninety years later, alive and with a drawing of you and the Heart of the Ocean?”

Evie draws up tall, shoulders drawn back. “My grandfather has his reasons, Ms. Wilson. You wouldn’t understand them unless you lived through a great tragedy like this—”

Evie is hushed gently by a pat of Eddie’s hand on her forearm. “It’s alright, mijita. Ms. Wilson—” He turns to Hen. “May I call you Henrietta?”

“Hen.”

“Hen,” Eddie nods with gratitude. “You ask reasonable questions. You’re right. Shannon and I both survived, as did our son, but we were separated from her and I never bothered to get in contact with her again. And I chose to change our last names as well. That...I did do all of that. I won’t deny it.”

“Do you mind if we ask why?” Chimney asks in what he hopes is not a pushy way.

“Why I changed my name? Or why I never bothered to look for Shannon?”

“Both?” Hen says.

“Diaz was a big name of the age, but marrying into Rupert M. Kelley’s family?” Chimney whistles. “Why give that up?”

Eddie takes his hands together, settling them in his lap. He glances at the drawing of himself again, just for one more moment, before turning away.

“Shannon’s name was her money,” Eddie explains. “Diaz was my shame.”

Hen nods like she gets it. Chimney could as well. He had surely changed his name several times throughout his life as well. The effects of racism, even throughout the passage of time, still held steadfast on all of them.

“My family’s money was almost gone, as I’m sure you know already. It came out eventually, especially after their only heirs appeared to have died on the ship. Without us, my parents had no ties to Shannon’s money. They got nothing.”

“An arranged marriage.”

Eddie nods. “Our name had enough sway to persuade Shannon’s family that we could be an advantageous match for both of us. It was the only decision my parents could make, even if they did it against my will.” 

He smiles. “But we had Christopher, and for that I will always be grateful to Shannon, even despite anything else that might’ve been between us.”

“That’s your father?” Hen asks Evie, who nods. 

“He passed a while back,” Evie murmurs, crossing her arms, a matching look of grief passes over Eddie and Evie’s face.

“The world kept trying to kill Christopher before he had a chance to live…” Eddie’s curled fingers come to rest against his lips. “But he defied all the odds. Survived birth. Survived the sinking. Lived way past the life expectancy for people with Cerebral Palsy.”

“He became an artist,” Evie says with pride. “Renowned.”

Eddie’s eyes flicker back to the drawing. He says nothing more about his son.

“He took the last name Buckley too,” Hen says. “Where did you get the last name from?”

Eddie smiles again finally, coming out his thoughts. “I took Evan’s last name.”

“Evan?” Chimney repeats. “Evan Buckley...is that the artist who drew this?”

Eddie nods. “Yes….Evan...he went by Buck. He liked it better than his first name; thought it represented him better than his first name ever could, something I could understand. He was an artist too. He travelled the world, something I envied him deeply for. He was from America, Pennsylvania, but he found himself in Britain after painting and drawing his way across the entire European content. He had barely a penny to his name, but he won a pair of tickets in a card game…”

*

**_Southampton, England. 10 April 1912_ **

**_Southampton Port & Trade_ **

Seagulls fly overhead, loud screeching echoing in Eddie’s ears as he exits the carriage. Before him stands the largest ship Eddie has ever seen. He tilts his head back, tempted to take his hat off to get a better look at the monstrosity of a sailboat. The sun shone brightly in his eyes, quickly dashing the thought of removing the hat.

A soft inquiring noise to his left takes his attention away from the boat. 

Eddie turns to help Christopher out of the carriage with a smile. He grabs his crutches first, laying them to rest against the carriage, before scooping his hands under Christopher’s arms to haul him up and out of the seat. Chris grabs hold of the lapels of Eddie’s suit jacket to keep his balance. Eddie doesn’t mind. The thing cost more than any of the equipment he’d used during his service, but if Christopher wants to rip it apart Eddie would have no qualms. He holds the boy to his side for a little while longer, watching his son’s face as he looks up at the  _ Titanic _ in wonder.

“Whoa….” Christopher marvels, his jaw hanging open. His head tilts all the way back just like Eddie had been tempted to do not a moment ago. He smiles at Christopher’s awestruck face. “It’s so big!”

“The biggest ship in the world!” Rupert comes up behind them, clapping Eddie on the shoulder. Eddie turns slightly and sees his own father beside Rupert. “You get to travel in style, Christopher!”

Christopher smiles politely at his grandfathers, letting himself be put down by Eddie who quickly grabs his crutches so the boy could walk on his own.

“Eddie,” Helena butts in. “Shouldn’t you just carry the boy up? He might trip and fall into the water.”

“But I won’t—” Christopher starts to say.

“Edmund!” a voice calls back from the carriage. Eddie’s head whips back and forth from Chris to his father and mother looking at him expectantly. 

“He’ll be fine,” he says with conviction before turning back to the carriage. He sticks a hand out in waiting, and finally, Shannon grabs a hold and helps herself out. Her mouth turns down when she has to let her skirt onto the dirt below. 

“Father, why couldn’t we have been dropped off right at the gangway?” Shannon asks.

“Because, my dearest, we have to leave the car here for it to be loaded under the boat. It was either that or buy a new car in New York.”

“We could’ve just done that,” Shannon says petulantly. 

“I won’t stand for any American made cars.” Rupert shakes his head in disgust. “It would fall apart the moment we started it.”

Eddie blocks them out and starts walking forward with Christopher again, letting the boy walk for himself. His hand, however, remains a soft but never forceful guide on Christopher’s upper back. 

“Are you excited, Dad?” Christopher asks, looking up from the ship to his dad’s face. “We gotta get up there soon so we can try and capture some clouds. Don’t you think we should be able to touch them from the top?”

Eddie smiles, petting the back of Christopher’s head. “Clouds turn to water when captured. We’d need as many jars as we can carry.”

“Think Grandpa has some?” Christopher turns back to look behind him. 

They’re all speaking softly amongst each other, but he could tell by the look on his father’s face that they are most likely discussing their upcoming business in the United States. It’s been a while since Eddie has been back there. He lived in America until his third birthday, when his parents moved the entire family to England. Now, more than twenty years later, he’s going back and taking his son with him. But it isn’t just his son, he has Shannon and her father, and his parents too. And he wouldn’t be going to build a new life for him and Christopher. No, he would be moving into the Kelley estate in New York, where he would be shackled to the family business his father had created.

“I don’t think he has any jars, buddy,” Eddie says with a remorseful grimace. “Why don’t we just settle to let the clouds go right after we capture them?”

“Okay!” Christopher beams with delight. Sometimes it feels like his son’s smiles are the only thing that brings him a modicum of joy in his bleak existence.

“Edmund, please wait for the rest of us before you board,” Shannon calls from behind them. 

Eddie grits his teeth, closing his eyes for just enough time for it to be considered a slow blink.

Christopher nudges him in the side. “Wanna race?”

He loves his little boy more than life itself. 

Eddie ruffles Christopher’s hair. “Maybe later once we get settled, yes? We’ll go and find a deck with no one around and you and I will race circles, okay?”

Christopher nods in satisfaction, even though Eddie knows the boy only suggested it to cheer Eddie up. The two of them pause in their stride to wait for the rest of their party to catch up to them. They soon pass the two boys up and Eddie is perfectly content to let them handle everything so Christopher and Eddie could stand back and enjoy the view of the ship. 

“Unsinkable,” he hears his father-in-law boasting to his parents from up ahead. “Made of the strongest steel money can buy.”

As Eddie walks with Christopher up the gangway and onto the Titanic, he wonders how true that statement could be when one’s already run out of money. 

*

**_Saul’s bar_ **

“You are literally pissing all of my money away,” Josh yells as he slams his cards down on the table. “This is all your fault, Buckley.”

“Hey, hey,” Buck throws a hand out to calm down Josh, while still holding his cards close to his chest with his other. “Josh…I swear to you. I’m going to make it up to you.”

Josh shakes his head, crossing his arms. “Yeah? And how’re you gonna do that?”

The two other men across from Buck and Josh smirk. They know they’ve won.

Buck glances down at his cards and pulls a face. “I’m really,  _ really _ sorry, Josh.”

“What are you—”

“Sorry you’re not gonna see your mama for a real long time.” Buck slams his cards down on the table. “Cause we’re going to America! Look at that, boys! Royal flush!”

Rounds of outraged yelling fills the bar. Buck ignores it all, including the tightening of the man’s fist as he bends over to scoop up all of the money he just won  _ plus  _ two third class tickets on the  _ Titanic. _ “Woo hoo! That’s what I’m talking about.”

Josh snatches his arm and starts to pull him out of the bar. “If we’re getting on that boat, we need to go now!”

“Relax,” Buck laughs, wanting to stay and gloat just a little while longer. “We have plenty of—”

The sound of the ship’s horn cuts him off, and warns him of the fist flying his way. 

“Shit!” Buck ducks and then scrambles to snatch his sack from the ground. “Run, Josh, run!”

The two of them sprint from the bar, the pair of sucker’s hauling ass after them. “Runnnn!”

Buck loses count of how many bodies he pushes out of the way, colliding with the sophisticated men and women of Southampton, using their pearl adorned bodies to launch himself farther down the pier.

“We’ve only got two minutes!” Josh chokes out, only a step or so behind him, pack in one hand, and _Titanic_ ticket in the other. “We’re not gonna make it!”

“We’re gonna make it!” Buck shoves another man out of the way, and nearly runs head first into the officer checking tickets.

“You’ve gone through the health check?” the man asks urgently as he examines their tickets.

“Yeah, of course we have,” Buck tells him. “And besides, we’re Americans, we don’t have lice.”

The man points to Buck’s eyebrow. “What do you call that then?”

He groans internally. Jesus, they don’t have  _ time  _ for this. “‘A birthmark, sir. Please, my mom is waiting for me back in Pennsylvania, I can’t let her down and miss the boat.”

The man looks over his shoulder at Josh with a curl of his lip. “‘Fine…”

“Thank you!” Buck snatches their tickets and quickly hops over the gangway and onto the boat, Josh right behind him. They whoop like mad men, banging the walls and spinning in circles as they rush down the hall. “We made it!”

“I could  _ kiss  _ you—” 

Buck whirls around and presses a giant smack of his lips to Josh’s cheek. “That’s all you’re getting from me!”

Josh throws Buck off and wipes his cheek good naturedly. “I know! Ugh, we’ve already established you’re not my type.”

“And you’re not mine either,” Buck says with a grin and wink as they continue to skip their way down the hall to their room.

They find their room shortly after. “This is it!” 

Bursting in, they find two other men inside, both of them confused as hell to see Buck and Josh when they’re clearly looking for two other people. Buck ignores their looks and just shakes their hands. “I’m Buck, that’s Josh!” He turns to Josh. “‘You on top or bottom?”

“Ew, Buckley, never ask me that again.” He settles down on the bottom bunk with a chortle anyway.

“Top it is!” Buck grins, throwing his bag on top of his bunk. “Now come on! We gotta go back up top and wave off the crowd! I’ll race you!”

“Where’s Shay?” Buck thinks he hears one of his roommates ask. Buck bursts into unrestrained and uproarious laughter.

Buck and Josh plunge over to the railing, nearly falling off, with matching grins. They shout out loud and wave goodbye to absolutely no one. 

Buck isn’t leaving anybody behind, and no one is leaving him either.

This time, Buck is headed towards something. Sailing on towards his future.

*

**_11 April 1912_ **

**_Three days until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

“Honestly, Edmund, I don’t understand why you insist on taking the boy out when we’re meant to be getting ready for dinner in just a few short hours,” Shannon says from the sitting room of their suites. “Now you’ve gone and tired him out from all that…” She skips across the word like it isn’t even correct to describe what Christopher has done. “Running.”

“He’s just a little kid, Shannon. He wants to have fun. He’s never been on a ship before.”

“Regardless, it’s not proper. Make sure Carla has him ready by the time we’re ready to leave.”

Eddie nods, just wanting the conversation to be over. He watches as the rest of the servants mull about, putting up decorative plants and paintings. It isn’t like they’re going to be on board all that long. It would be less than a week, a week and a half if they’re sailing particularly slow, and yet they’re decorating the suites like this is to be their new home for the next two months.

In the quiet, when the last of the maids has left, Eddie allows himself a moment to breach the silence.

“Do you have to keep calling me that?”

“What?” Shannon asks, like she doesn’t even hear him even though Eddie knows she clearly heard him.

“You keep calling me Edmund. We’ve been married for nine years, Shannon. You know that’s not my name,” Eddie says, nearly ready to stand up, just to have some sort of level above her, even if it’s just physical height.

She rolls her eyes like she does every time they have this conversation. “What does it matter if I just drop off the o?”

“Then call me Eddie. I’ve asked you this so many times.”

“Eddie is not a proper name and you know this. This is not a pub, this is a marriage; I will call you by your given name.”

“Edmund is not my given name!”

“It's the proper English version, and that’s what matters,” Shannon hisses, her face harsh and unyielding.

Eddie throws his hands up in the air. He’s had  _ enough.  _

Not even bothering to dignify Shannon with a response, Eddie storms out of their suites, and down the hallway. He needs some god damn fresh air.

Nine years! Nine  _ years _ they’ve been married and Shannon still refuses to show him even a shrivel of respect. It’s like he’s worse scum than the dog shit under her shoe. Up the stairs he marches until he finds the first class deck. He heads to the front of the ship, away from where any of the other first class passengers might see him. He stops at a railing separating the viewing deck from the front most part of the ship. Below there is a staircase leading down to what looks like mostly crew areas. He stares out past the front point of the ship.

He stays where he is, instead looking out over the bow to watch as the ship sailed along the open water. The waves, uncaring about anything, make their own ripples and patterns. The bow of the ship plunders on, disrupting the ocean’s peace. The sun is setting in the distance, just starting to recede beyond the horizon, but it’s still light enough to cast a golden hue over the ship. His eye catches on something at the very tip of the bow. 

A man, a tall man from what it looks like, standing there alone. His arms are spread in front of him, like an eagle in full flight. His light brown hair is almost blonde and shimmers in the golden sunset. There’s no access to the bow directly from the first class deck, nor the second class. Most of the first and second class passengers don’t typically venture down to the lower decks either, especially not to stand spread at the front like a ship figurehead. The man must be a third class passenger. It only makes sense. Who else but a third class passenger would show this much reckless abandon in public?

It isn’t  _ proper,  _ he hears Shannon sneer in his head.

Eddie watches as the man tips his head back, ever so slightly. How does he not lose balance? His body bobs and weaves with the ship. Completely attune to every sway of the waves. If Eddie didn’t know better, he’d believe the man to be a part of the ship.

The man then grabs hold of the wires on either side of the bow and steps down—Eddie didn’t even realize that he’d been standing up on the railing— and turns around. The man catches Eddie’s eyes that instant, and something inside him jolts. He looks away quickly, but gracefully. No one around him would even notice him staring at this man. 

He chances one more glance down at the man, only to find him staring back up at him with a smile. His eyes are squinted in the sunlight, but he holds a hand over his head like a sun visor and waves at the same time.

Eddie blinks.

Of course, he wouldn’t wave back. He doesn’t know this man from the regular person on the street in London. The man starts to walk closer, until he’s almost at the foot of the stairs leading up to where Eddie is. From this shorter distance, Eddie can see the man’s face clearer. 

He has a gentle face. Kind, that much Eddie could tell even without knowing this man.

Eddie turns his gaze away again.

“Daddy!” Christopher comes walking up to him, resting right beside him. “Come on, we’re waiting for you. Did you know we’re having duck for dinner tonight? I love ducks!”

Eddie smiles, brushing a finger over his boy’s nose. Christopher scrunches his nose like a rabbit, ticklish, and that’s enough to make him feel like maybe he could make it through the rest of the day. He could do this. He could keep living if it means he could be with Christopher. Be  _ there _ for Christopher like no one else in the world is there for him.

Taking a deep breath, he turns around and takes his son’s hand.

It’s time to go back to his life.

*

“Who was that you waved to?” Josh asks when Buck comes back to join him on the bench where he’d been sitting, tucked away into a little corner.

Buck shrugs. “I don’t know. Some first class business-man.”

“Uh, yeah, I figured what with the pristine beige suit and the slicked back hair.” Josh shakes his head. “I meant, why did you wave to him? You know him?”

“Nope. Never seen him before in my life.” Buck looks back up to the first class deck where the man had been standing before he had left. He feels the burning itch to pull out his sketchbook. Buck’s never been one to deny himself his impulses, so he does just that. 

That man...he had been something else. Buck is used to drawing beautiful women. He’s drawn hundreds, nay thousands throughout Europe, in all states of undress. He’s drawn thin women and plump women. He’s drawn (and bedded) women who posed for him with nothing on their skin but gooseflesh. Most of the time when he drew men, it didn’t have the same reverence, the same eye of desire. There had been men Buck had desired before, and like he said, he was never one to deny himself his desires. 

But he has never seen a man this beautiful before.

Standing there, in the sunset afterglow, the man stood like a god above men. His back rigid, like a soldier. His eyes haunted, like he’d seen death — perhaps even been the master of it before, and still lived to feel the sorrow. The beige of his suit stood out as it hugged the man’s tan skin. The slope of his nose curved over soft cheeks, strands of gelled hair sneaking out of place to blow past his ears. His eyes shimmered a dark chestnut with the sun. And when his eyes locked with Buck’s…

He wishes he could sketch the man up close. Close enough to caress the blemishes on his skin — on his canvas — to capture each thread of hair of his eyebrows. 

A little boy had come up to him at that last moment, a little boy in crutches. He looked up at the man, and then something happened that Buck could hardly describe. It was like watching a ghost come back to life. Like watching a corpse reanimate before his very eyes. 

Here he had thought that man looked beautiful before, it was nothing compared to the look on his face when he stared down at the little boy who was obviously his son.

Buck had never seen a father look so in love with his child before — most certainly had never seen that look in his own father’s eyes. If it wasn’t for the wind blowing in his dry eyes, he might’ve thought the sight made him tear up.

The rough sketch he has on his lap is nothing compared to the real deal. 

“Doubt you’ll ever get closer to the likes of him,” Josh comments, noticing the intensity of which Buck is bent over his sketchbook. Buck looks up with a glare. Josh raises an eyebrow. “He’s totally your type. A pretty boy! But...he’s got a kid so he must have a wife.”

“Shut up,” Buck says, closing his book and standing up. He had tried to draw the little boy next to his father, but he hadn’t had time to finish. He would get to it later. He’s sure he would end up obsessed with this drawing for the rest of the night. “Let’s go. It’s time for dinner. I could eat a whole horse.”

Dinner in the third class mess hall is nowhere close to a horse. But Buck isn’t complaining. There were plenty of times when he hadn’t known where his next meal would come from. Sometimes he had relied on the kindness (or pity) of nearby strangers. Other times, he had managed to work or hustle some money and pay for a hearty meal. The best of times, he’d stumble across a man so willing to pay for a good portrait of his mistress that Buck felt like a wealthy man indeed!

Still, it could be nice, one of these days, to sit in a real dining room, to care about which fork is which. His only worry being whether each small course would fill him up or if he would have to sneak a snack in the middle of the night. He thinks a little bit of the man and his son, wondering if they are sitting at one of those dining rooms, eating nice food and laughing together. 

It’s a pleasant thought, even as Buck scarfs down stale bread and porridge and old beer and listens to Josh joking around with the bartender.

Buck could imagine himself next to them, decked out in a clean black and white suit, with a scotch in his right hand. Where they are his family. Where they look at him with the same love with which they look at each other.

But that was never meant to be Buck’s destiny. 

And he’s alright with that. 

*

Eddie sits in his chair in the dining room, but his mind is far away. Truly, he feels like his soul has sank into some place deep inside his body. An endless casym of just...nothing.

This had been his life for the better part of a decade. When he had been discharged from the military, he had no choice but to join Ramon and Rupert’s enterprising. Meetings with the board, parties with their wives and balls with their children who would grow up to be the exact same people their parents were. A world where he walked around only half-alive, discussing the same mindless drivel that he’d discussed with everyone else. Repeating the same conversations about the weather and about work and about parties and balls and meetings, over and over and over. 

Is it horrible that he almost wishes he could be back in the action-packed field of war? At least on the battlefield the men didn’t give a shit about swearing, about falling in the mud. The men called him by his name. The men  _ cared  _ whether they lived or died. They had families they loved to get back to. Even if it was only a prayer to live off to keep going day by day.

Christopher’s giggles bubble up through the solid wall of grey that surrounds Eddie. He turns his head to gaze at his son. 

Eddie had fallen in love with Christopher the minute he’d been born. Somehow he had found a calling, a break to the endless nothing of his life, when it came to his boy. It hadn’t been easy, trying to raise Christopher. It seemed everything that was  _ proper _ was put in place to keep him as far away from raising his own child as possible. Even after all of the complications surrounding Christopher’s birth, Shannon still felt it pertinent to find a nursery maid to take care of Christopher instead of bothering to do it herself. What did she have that was so much more important than taking care of her own son? Maintaining her social life? Maintaining appearances? 

His parents had convinced him the only way to take care of Christopher was to join the army. Being shot and wounded on the battlefield sent him home, and for that, Eddie was grateful. He had no idea how bad it had gotten since he had been away.

And once Christopher was officially diagnosed with cerebral palsy? While Eddie fought to be excused from meetings he didn’t even need to be a part of, and made up reasons to avoid going on long trips for his father so he could be with his son, Shannon did her best to avoid them. He knew she felt guilty about Christopher’s condition, that much she had divulged to him in the middle of the night when no one was around to witness her weakness, but guilt did not absolve one of their responsibility. Eddie would know. He had spent years feeling guilty about abandoning Chris to join the army. He made a vow that he would never leave Christopher again.

“And what of the boy…? Christopher, is it?” A man sitting at the same table as them asks. Eddie snaps to attention at the mention of his son. He sees that it’s Mr. Carmichael, a trade partner of Kelley’s. 

“Cerebral palsy,” Rupert mutters. “Terribly unfortunate.”

“Ah, yes, yes. It is genetic, is it not?”

“Indeed, but it can’t be helped, you know. The boy only has a quarter in him but nevertheless—”

Something inside Eddie’s rib cage cracks and for a moment Eddie can hear nothing but ringing in his ears, getting louder and louder until it starts to white out his vision.

He stands abruptly.

“Eddie?” his mother calls, startled.

He ignores them, just gives them a curt half-bow, muttering a low “excuse me” before making a break for it. From the outside, you can’t tell anything is wrong with him. He looks as if he is simply taking a leisurely stroll to the bathroom, or maybe out for a smoke. He keeps up appearances at all times, even as he is dissolving inside. 

The second he steps foot outside the dining room and into the cool night air, the facade cracks. 

He runs.

He doesn’t care if he knocks into people, women exclaiming and clutching their bosoms and men calling after him to see if he's alright. He keeps going. Soon enough, he reaches the gates blocking the stairs of the first class deck to the second class deck. It doesn’t take him long to make it past that deck as well before pushing open the gate and rushing down the steps to the third class deck— the deck where no one would recognize him, no one would speak to him if they know what’s good for them, and most people do. The deck closest to the barrier with the sea below.

The railing punches him in the gut and he has to clutch the tight rope to his right to stop himself from going over completely right then and there. He gasps out, panting out into the arctic salt water below him. 

“Fuck!’ he spits. “Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck!” _

The waves eat up his screams. Eddie’s almost thankful for it.

He looks up into the endless black of the sky. Are those stars or is his vision still spotty?

It’s a struggle, sucking in one breath after another, and it doesn’t do anything to lower the sound of the drums in his ears. At least the shrill ringing has stopped. 

At least. At least.

The rope he is clutching leaves red welts on the inside of his palms. He instead brings both of them to the railing and looks over it at the water again. The wind blows against the back of his head, the back of the boat speeding along as if Eddie isn’t having a mental break right then. The ocean doesn’t care about him. It wouldn’t notice if he went right over. There's no one nearby. No one to notice if he just...heaves one foot onto the railing. 

“Hah!” Eddie gasps, nearly closing his eyes, before he forces them open again to look back out over the water. He brings his other foot up, until he’s completely off the deck. 

It reminds him, suddenly, of that third class passenger who had been doing this at the front of the ship just earlier that day. He had let go of the railing though. Had his arms and hands spread out in front of him. If he could do that and not fall, then surely Eddie could too. 

But why stop there?

Eddie takes another step up, climbing the railing like a ladder until he’s able to swing his leg over the side completely. Somehow he finds himself on the outside, his back to the railing and his feet half hanging off the back of the boat.

“Oh god, oh god,” Eddie sniffs, but forces his eyes open. His arms are out on either side of him, both hands clutching onto the railing behind him. 

How fitting. There he stands, paralyzed, looking out at the water that passed by at the speed of light. If Eddie falls off the boat, no one would be able to get him back on. The boat would be long gone before they could find him. Before anyone would even notice he is gone. 

How fast would he die? Would it be instantaneous? If the impact alone doesn’t kill him, then the hypothermia would surely— 

“Don’t do it!”

“Fuck!” Eddie clenches his eyes shut and grips the railing so hard his hands turn white. “What the fuck are you doing? Sneaking up like that on me?” He looks over his shoulder and spots—holy shit, is that…? His brow furrows. Is that the guy who had been hanging off the front of the boat earlier today? The one who waved to him? “You— stay back!”

“I’m back! I’m staying back!” The man calls, even as Eddie watches him inch forward. “Just...don’t do this, okay? You  _ really  _ don’t want to do this.”

With that, Eddie sees red. “And who the  _ fuck  _ are you to tell me what I don’t want to do? Huh? You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

It’s quiet for a moment as Eddie turns away again to face the ocean. The wind whips his hair in every direction, the gel freezing into a white crust. It hits his eyes, scrapes at his cheeks.

He gulps as he glances down again. Oh god, that is a long way down. Oh fuck, that water looks really  _ really  _ cold. 

“Buck.”

“What?” Eddie whips his head back around.

The man is even closer now, close enough that Eddie can see his face clearly. That face that looked so kind earlier, now looked cautious. Worried. About Eddie. 

Oh man, that’s rich.

“My name,” the man says. “It’s Buck.”

The chill from the night air and the arctic water starts to penetrate deep beneath Eddie’s skin. He can do nothing but let out a hysterical huff. “What kind of name is Buck?”

“It’s a nickname,” the man—Buck—says with his own little laugh. “My name is Evan Buckley, but everyone calls me Buck. Or at least my friends do.”

“I’m not your friend,” Eddie spits. “We aren’t friends. We’re strangers.”

“Well...” The man strolls forward. “You know my name now. What’s yours?”

Eddie huffs another laugh, and this time it’s followed by more, the laughter getting and louder and louder. He sounds mad, even to his own ears, but Eddie can’t make himself shut up. He doesn’t know what makes him do it, maybe it’s the way the man had looked at him so kindly earlier that day…or maybe it’s the worry (the care?) in the man’s eyes now, but he answers him honestly. “Eddie. My name’s Eddie.”

“Eddie,” Buck says, rolling the name like it is the most exquisite taste in his mouth. Eddie shivers and tells himself it’s because it’s so freezing out. “Nice to meet you. See, now we’re not strangers. So I can tell you, that you really  _ really  _ don’t want to do this. You gotta think about your kid.”

Eddie flinches so hard he nearly slips, but Buck lunges forward and captures his arm, steadying him.

“H-How—” Eddie’s teeth are chattering so hard he almost bites his tongue. “How do you know about Ch-Chris?” He’s two seconds from throwing the man off. How the fuck did he know about his son? Was he a stalker? And yet, he couldn’t let go. The man was his only anchor at that moment.

“Is that his name?” Buck asks, smiling to himself. “He’s adorable. I saw him with you earlier today on deck.”

It’s the image of Christopher’s smiling face in the glimmering sunset that finally makes the reality of what he had been about to do penetrate into his heart.

“Oh God,” Eddie clenches Buck’s hand. “I gotta. I gotta get back to—” He nearly throws up thinking about it. He almost jumped. He almost jumped and left Chris behind—

Buck moves forward, holding out his other hand. “Come on, take my hand. We’ll get you back over here and you’ll go back to Chris, alright? We’ll pretend this never happened. Nobody ever has to know.”

How could he do this? How could he even  _ think  _ of leaving Chris behind? Leaving him without a dad? He  _ vowed  _ to never leave Christopher again and yet when the going got tough, he was ready to throw himself off the nearest high surface? 

He is a fucking coward. More than the cold, the burning hatred he feels towards himself eats away at him. 

The humiliation nearly wrecks him just as much as the shame. Now he has a witness to it all, someone who could hold this over his head, and yet, what? He’s promising to never tell a living soul about it? Just let Eddie walk home and slip back into his bed next to Shannon with Chris just a door down, like nothing ever happened? 

Eddie nods, sniffing again, before he slowly starts to turn around. The cold rusts his bones, making every movement agony. Eventually, he’s facing Buck head on. Both of Buck’s hands wrap around his in an awkward cross between their chests. Buck lets out a relieved laugh, and the air around him turns white like smoke. Eddie looks into his eyes, shimmering bright blue, and deeper than the sea at his back. Just above his left eye is a red birthmark. If Buck notices him studying his face, he doesn't say anything. 

“Okay, Eddie, one step at a time, you ready?”

He lets himself be led like a little kid, lifting his foot up to the railing.

The front of his shoe gets caught in his pants, and he goes down hard.

Before he has a moment to comprehend what’s happening, he’s dangling over the open water, legs kicking out as the wind knocks him about.

“Hang on!” Buck grunts out a yell as he hooks his feet under the railing to hold his own body taut on the other side. His front is bent over the railing painfully as he clutches at Eddie’s hands. “Grab the railing, quickly! Pull yourself up, come on!”

“Don’t drop me!” He yells, feeling the unbridled panic crash over him like a tsunami. He doesn’t give a single thought of decorum or propriety. All he’s thinking of is Christopher. Of never seeing his face again. Of never seeing him grow up. “P-Please don’t let go—!”

“You gotta let go of one of my hands, okay?” Buck grunts. “Grab onto the rail to help me lift you up! Come on!”

Eddie forces himself to think of this like he was in the war. He wasn’t in the Navy, and never ended up on a boat, but thinking of this like an active battlefield helps. Taking it second by second, minute by minute, just like he had taught Christopher when the pain was too much. 

He just has to push himself to make sure he stays alive.

He lets go of Buck’s hand and grips onto the railing. With all the strength the two of them could muster, they heave Eddie’s body up.

“Come on, that’s it!” Buck grunts, wrapping both of his arms over Eddie’s torso, hauling him over. “Almost there, almost there!”

They both go tumbling down on the deck, Eddie splays out on top of Buck as they both pant for breath like they’ve sprinted an entire marathon.

“Oh, fuck.” All the energy deflates out of him at once, and his body goes limp on top of Buck’s. The man’s arms around him are warm, oddly enough, and for a moment Eddie lets himself be held, lets himself be comforted by the man who had saved him.

“Hey, hey, come on buddy, come on. Stay with me.”

He rolls over, helping Eddie to sit up straight. His hands come out to touch his shoulders, to check his face. Eddie looks up into his eyes, wondering when Buck’s face had gotten so close. A traitorous part of Eddie’s brain wants to warm his blue lips against Buck’s warm skin. 

That’s when the sound of pounding footsteps comes around the corner. 

“Eddie, what on God’s green earth—” It’s his father. 

Shit. As if tonight could get any worse.

“You!” A guard for the ship calls out, pushing Buck off of Eddie. The chill begins to set in again, and this time, when Eddie tries to stand up, the numbness in his legs nearly sends Eddie crashing to the ground again

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” And...that’s his mother.

“I didn’t—” Buck is cut off.

“Eddie, was this man trying to rob you?” That’s Shannon’s voice. Great. All of his family is there, probably having sent someone to search for him when he hadn’t come back from the “bathroom”. Surrounding them are more of their usual party, the Colonel Gracie and their valet Lovejoy, probably having tagged along with Rupert and his father from their usual game of cards and brandy following dinner.

“No!” Eddie manages to get out. His father and Rupert help him up and another guard comes over and hands him a blanket. “He wasn’t trying to rob me. I—”

Oh no. What is he supposed to say?

“I—” he stammers. “That is, I—”

“This is completely unacceptable!” His mother demands, “Arrest him!’

The guards move to cuff Buck.

“No, stop, jesus!” Eddie tries to rush forward and stop the officer.

“Edmund—” Shannon gasps out.

“That’s not my name!” Eddie snaps at her, not even bothering to check her reaction before whipping back around. “He didn’t—” Eddie takes a breath. “I slipped, okay? I came out here to look out at the water. I just needed some air because I—I had a headache. And I leaned too far over and I slipped. I was lucky, really, that Mr. Buckley was here. Otherwise I would’ve gone overboard. He pulled me back over. He saved me.”

“Is that the way of it, sir?” the guard asks Buck who nods quickly. 

“I was just out here for a smoke and I heard him.”

Shannon narrows her eyes at Eddie first, and then at Buck. 

“The boy’s a hero then,” Mr. Gracie says. “Ramon, you must reward the young man for his gallantry.”

“A twenty should do it,” Shannon remarks, nodding at Lovejoy to hand it over to Buck.

“Is that the price for my life?” Eddie can’t help but snap. “I would be dead if it wasn’t for him. Christopher wouldn’t have a father anymore if not for—” 

“Oh, Eddie,” his mom hushes. “That’s enough.”

“Perhaps,” Ramon starts. “Perhaps the young man can join us for dinner tomorrow night? To tell his heroic tale. I’m sure that would suffice. Good food and dining, yes?”

“Uh…” Buck looks over at Eddie, and in that gaze Eddie can see all that he isn’t saying. Buck will not accept if Eddie doesn’t want him there. He would just go on his way, back to their separate lives if that is what Eddie truly wants.

Well, that isn’t what he wants.

“Yes, please join us, Mr. Buckley,” Eddie speaks up again. “You must let us repay you. It is the absolute least we could do.”

Buck gets the message and nods. “Alright. I’d be happy to join.”

“Good. The matter is settled,” Rupert says. “Now, let us return to our brandy, yes?”

As they begin to shuffle off, Eddie spares a glance back at Buck behind him. Buck has his hands in his pockets, but he lifts one to wave to Eddie again. The smile he gave Eddie when they’d first met eyes greets him once more. 

It warms Eddie more than any blanket ever could. 

*

**_12 April 1912_ **

**_Two days until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

Buck doesn’t know what possesses him (or maybe he does) but he goes back to the stern of the ship the next morning. He ends up sketching the sky and the seas for a little while, but in the end his thoughts end up drifting back to the man from last night. Eddie.

He hadn’t expected to see the man again, not after their not-moment with Buck ogling Eddie from below deck. 

He had been laying on a bench, looking up at the night sky, thinking about what he was going to tell his mom when he got back to Pennsylvania, when he saw Eddie whirl past. He followed. He’s not proud of himself for following a stranger, but he followed Eddie, and he’s damn thankful he did. If he hadn’t been there, if Eddie had gone over…

He thinks about the little boy again. The child with the chubby cheeks and the adorable smile. He doesn’t look much like Eddie, looks more like his mother, that younger woman who had been there last night. Has the same pale complexion as her. But when the boy smiles...he’s the spitting image of his father. 

Buck finds himself starting a new drawing of Eddie then. This time one of Eddie when they had been standing face to face, arms crossed in front of them with Eddie behind the railing and Buck in front. His face had been so close, he could see spots on his chin from where he had missed shaving. He could see the dark circles under his eyes, the eyes that had previously been a bit too far away for him to see properly earlier that day. Now they were up close, and Buck could’ve stared at him for hours if hadn’t been so preoccupied with getting Eddie back over the ledge.

He nearly threw his heart up when Eddie had slipped. Buck had been through a lot of terrifying experiences in his life. He’d almost died too many times to count, some of those incidents being more mundane (hunger) and others more fantastical (a burning house nearly collapsing on him). But none of his own near death experiences had ever terrified him as much as this one, and it hadn’t even been him who was in danger of dying. It was Eddie, and that made it all the more horrifying.

A throat clears from behind him.

Speaking of the devil.

“What are you doing here?” Buck asks, standing up to face Eddie who is standing in front of him in slightly more casual (only slightly) clothes than last night. “Thought I wasn’t going to see you again till tonight.”

Eddie looks embarrassed. It’s cute, a rosy shade covering his cheeks as he avoids looking Buck in the eye. He doesn’t shove his hands in his pockets, like Buck might’ve if his hands weren’t full. Instead he clasps them behind his back. A true gentleman, through and through.

“I wanted to give you a proper thank you,” Eddie seems to eventually settle on. He draws himself up straighter. Buck sees it for what it really is. Eddie’s invisible armor. “I didn’t really get a chance to last night.”

Buck shrugs him off. “Hey, I was only one arm. You were the other. You saved yourself just as much as I did last night.”

“Yeah.” Eddie blinks, a bit confused. “Yeah, maybe.” A frown settles over his face. Oh, how Buck wishes he could read minds in that moment. He would give his drawing hand to know what Eddie was thinking right then. He looks like doesn’t believe it.

Is that why Buck had found Eddie out there like that last night? Because Eddie doesn’t believe he deserves to be saved...that he could be the one to save himself.

“Were you really going to do it?” Buck finds himself asking quietly. Neither of them need to clarify what he is referring to.

Eddie looks deeply uncomfortable, and Buck wishes he could take back the question. Some things are just too personal, he should’ve known that. He  _ does  _ know that, it’s why he rarely ever talks about himself, and yet— 

“Yes. I was.” Eddie sighs, like he has finally come upon the conclusion, the courage, to tell the truth. “I wasn’t thinking—or actually, yes, I was. I wasn’t thinking about Christopher, or my responsibilities or anything important. All I could think about was—” he chokes on the last word. A hand comes up to wipe his mouth. Trying to stop himself from admitting it.

“The pain?” Buck provides, guessing easily from the look on Eddie’s face.

Eddie’s eyes meet Buck’s again, for the first time since he snuck up on Buck today. He takes a moment, or maybe two, to look at Buck, to study his face like  _ he  _ is the painter and Buck is the subject. Buck has never been the model before, but if Eddie ever wants to give it a go he most certainly wouldn’t say no. 

Something shifts in Eddie’s eyes at that moment. Something Buck can’t place his finger on. But his demeanor shifts, his shoulders sagging. He shifts, leaning and resting his weight on his left leg. Relaxing. Eddie is deciding to trust him.

Lord, what a privilege it is to watch Eddie choose to trust him.

“Yeah.” It’s all Eddie says, but it’s enough. It’s an admission, it’s an olive branch.

“Well, it’s like you said,” Buck says after another long moment. “I don’t really know you or your life. But I do know something or two about pain.” He knows enough. Maybe a bit too much. But this moment isn’t about him. This moment is about Eddie. “And I’m sorry yours brought you there last night.”

Eddie nods again. His eyes drop from Buck’s and he looks out past Buck’s shoulders, to the ocean. Buck wonders if Eddie is thinking about how cold the water is during the day. 

“How’s Chris?” Buck brings up quickly for a change of subject. He actually is curious about the little guy. He wants to know Eddie, and Christopher is a part of Eddie.

“He’s good.” Eddie blinks, like coming out of a fog. His eyelashes flutter, long and airy. The outline of a smile ghosts his features. “He’s really good. Thank you for asking. Truly.” 

“Does he know I’m joining you guys tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Oh? Now  _ that  _ is surprising.

“Really? What’d you tell him?” Buck asks.

Eddie smiles at the tease in Buck’s voice. He lets out a laugh. The first one Buck has heard from him. It’s nice, warm and gentle. “Just that a friend of mine is joining us.”

“Oh, a friend, huh?” Buck would like to be Eddie’s friend. Even if just for the days that they remained on this ship. “A step up from strangers.”

Eddie smiles. “Yeah, we’ll see.” He pauses for a moment, regarding Buck thoughtfully before saying, “Seriously though...you could have my back any day.”

They share twin smiles and Buck thinks he could get used to smiling with Eddie like this. It’s a dangerous thought, so dangerous Buck doesn’t even recognize the feeling swelling in his chest over the giddiness of the warmth cocooning the two of them.

He doesn’t realize how close they end up to each other, but Buck uses the opportunity to nudge in the arm. “Or...you could have mine?” He bites his lip, hoping Eddie accepts the silent offer.

Eddie purses his lips, giving Buck a calculating look before a tiny smile appears. “Deal.”

He reaches his hand out to Buck for a shake. The hands are large and callused, and Buck wonders if Eddie has ever done any sort of labor before. The man is obviously wealthy beyond comprehension, but his hands tell another story. Would a day ever come where Buck could study this man’s hands and not look like a pervert?

Buck puts the thought out of his mind, and grasps Eddie’s waiting hand. Their hands hang between them, skin against warm skin.

“Wanna take a walk?” Buck asks. 

Eddie looks down at his watch. “I should really go… they might be missing me.”

Buck raises an eyebrow. “Ah yes. Mustn’t be missing for cards and brandy.”

Eddie actually chuckles at that. Buck likes hearing him laugh. He should do it more often.

Then the man makes a decision. “Yes, a walk sounds good.”

*

“So…” Buck says after a minute. “You said something yesterday I was meaning to ask about.”

Eddie groans, stroking a hand over his mouth. “Yeah, I’m sure I said a lot of things. Care to be more specific.”

“The woman...the one who called you Edmund,” Buck says slowly.

Eddie grits his teeth. He forgot about that. It has become so routine now, Shannon calling by him the wrong name. He has trained himself not to react to it anymore, but somehow, last night, he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want Buck to think that was his name. And he was tired.

He wants someone to call him by his name, someone to look at him and actually  _ want  _ to be with him. He’s tired of the hostility. 

He is tired of the loneliness.

“Yeah...that’s Shannon. My wife.”

Buck hums. “You said it wasn’t your name.”

“Huh?” That isn’t what Eddie expected him to ask at all. He expects questions about Shannon, or about why he agreed to let Buck join them for dinner.

“You said your name wasn’t Edmund,” Buck says again. “I know you said you go by Eddie. Is it short for Edward?”

Eddie actually has to laugh at that. It’s an innocent question, not at all a dig at him, and somehow this genuine cluelessness in Buck is charming. 

Buck is just...well, he’s lovely. There isn’t another word he could think of to describe him adequately. 

Eddie shakes his head. “No. That’s not my name either.”

Buck raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer. Eddie shakes his head with another chuckle.

“My name is Edmundo,” he finally relents, letting the name roll off his tongue, the accent seeping in the way his abuela used to say it. His abuela had many names for him. Edmundito, Eddito, mijo. When they were alone, Eddie sometimes allowed himself to call his son by the Spanish word. It made him feel closer to his abuela. She had died a few years ago in America. He and his father had fought hard about going back to visit for the funeral and in the end, they hadn’t. He still resented his father for that.

“The english version, the  _ proper  _ version, of my name is Edmund. Shannon refuses to call me anything but, even though I’ve asked at least a hundred different times over the last nine years to just call me Eddie.”

Buck looks confused, but he doesn’t ask for clarification. Eddie doesn’t even know if he  _ can  _ properly explain it. Buck gazes at Eddie and then purses his lips, nodding his head. “You’ve been married a long time.”

Eddie sighs, leaning against the side of the ship. His voice is small when he answers. “Too long.”

“Do you love her?”

Eddie flinches, looking over at Buck. “That’s a really rude question.”

Rude. Terrifying. Either way, no one has ever asked him that before. Not even Shannon.

Buck shrugs, like he hadn’t set off a live fuse. “It’s just a question. Do you love her?”

“I—” Eddie blinks, his mouth floundering open. Does he love Shannon? Is he even fond of Shannon? Perhaps he had been within the first year of their marriage. Back when everything was so new, when they were still getting to know each other, slowly. Back before everything he did annoyed her, and every word she said to him felt like a laceration. “I—she’s Christopher’s mother.”

Buck comes closer, leaning against the railing beside him. “But do  _ you  _ love her?”

Eddie stands up straight. He really doesn’t want to answer this. He doesn’t want to voice the truth that is a not-so-secret secret since the day he was wed. “I don’t have to answer that.”

Buck nods his head slowly. “No, you don’t.” He sucks in a breath through his clenched teeth. “But you kinda already did.”

Eddie gawks at the courage of the man before him. Can he really read Eddie so well? Or had Eddie make it obvious by not claiming that  _ of course  _ he loves Shannon the second Buck asked?

“You’re presumptuous, aren’t you?” Eddie asks, but it’s not angry. What is the point? Buck guessed it. Denying it has done nothing but further expose the truth.

“Seems necessary when the person you’re talking to is avoiding the question.” Buck winks and Eddie hates the treasonous bird inside his chest that flutters its wings at the sight. 

“What’s that?” Eddie asks, catching a glimpse of the leather bound book Buck held between his hand and his hip. He’d seen Buck drawing in it earlier that day. He may or may not have been watching the man silently before he made his presence known. His eyes had traced down the length of Buck’s broad back, at the slight hunch of the muscles around his neck. He had the body of a working class man, and Eddie hated that that was the first thought that had popped into his head.

The thought reminded him of a book he found in his father’s study when he was younger. A philosophy book that had been so dense that Eddie could hardly swallow anything the book said. But he did remember one line. It stressed that our first initial thoughts about a situation or a person are what we have been conditioned to believe, they were not who we were at the core. It was what we chose to think of someone after that initial thought, what we chose to do about that thought, that proved our character.

Upon second look, Buck’s back looked strong, like a man who could haul another fully grown man over a ledge to safety. His hands spoke of skill, a kind of education that money could not buy, but required years and years of experience and motivation to master.

His body spoke of life, of many lives lived, and perhaps some lives died. His hands spoke of time, of creation that would live on for millennia. His face spoke of compassion, an understanding of pain and loss, but also of joy and passion.

“This?” Buck asks, looking down at the thing like it is nothing much. “Just an old sketchbook.”

Eddie had figured as much, when he had been watching Buck’s large hands working over it with a pencil. “What do you draw?”

Buck shrugs another shoulder. “Portraits, mostly? Landscapes sometimes.”

“Portraits? Like people?”

Buck nods with a shy smile. Eddie is sure he has nothing to be embarrassed about. “Yeah, but not in the typical way you might see in a museum.”

“Sometimes things that are in museums are worse.” Eddie stats confidently. “The most beautiful works of art I’ve seen have often been from street artists.”

Buck gives him a genuine smile at that. His eyes blink rapidly, his long eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks. He looks down at the book in his hand, like it bore his entire heart.

He holds it out to Eddie. “You want to look?”

Eddie honestly hadn’t planned to ask. He knows that a sketchbook, like a journal, is personal. Asking to view one’s innermost thoughts and feelings is terribly invasive and Eddie knows that if it had been him on the receiving end of a question like that, he might’ve been offended. Instead, Buck is the one asking him to look inside his heart. To see the world the way Buck views it. He wants to see inside Buck’s mind, wants to capture the world through his eyes, to know his thoughts and feelings and opinions.

His desire to look is stronger than any urge to be polite.

Eddie accepts with both hands, and the two of them slow their pace down. Eddie takes a seat on a nearby lounge chair. He decides to start at the beginning, at the oldest drawings. 

Eddie is no stranger to a woman’s naked body, but he doesn’t know why he is surprised by the beginning most pages being dominated by sketches of women in various states of undress. There are a few landscapes in there, just as Buck had indicated there would be, but the human body seems to be what fascinates him the most.

When he comes upon a drawing of a man, he tries his best to not let his embarrassment show on his face. It’s not that he is really  _ embarrassed  _ per se, he just hadn’t been expecting to see a naked man, especially not after the majority of the book had been filled with women.

“A man…” Eddie comments.

Buck smirks from beside him. He’s leaning over, closing into Eddie’s personal space, to watch as Eddie takes in his artwork. When Eddie had paused at the naked man, Buck hadn’t batted an eye. 

“A man,” Buck confirms. Then, more hesitantly, “Does that bother you?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No. Not at all. I was just surprised, given the amount of women.”

Buck laughs. “Most of the greatest artists in history had male muses. The statue of David...most of Da Vinci’s works...”

“Yes, but those were modeled after their male lovers.”

Buck nods. “Yes, and so is that one,” he says, pointing to the image of the man he had drawn.

Eddie’s face begins to heat for an entirely different reason now.

“Oh.”

“Still not bothered?”

“No…” Eddie shakes his head.

Buck crosses his arms like he doesn’t believe him.

“Not bothered,” Eddie corrects. “Rather…” Should he say it? Buck already knows so much about him. Things he’s never discussed with anyone else before. Buck could easily tell someone about Eddie’s attempt to end his life. He knows Eddie’s shame of not loving his wife. Should he give the man more of him? 

But then again, Buck held his secret and swore not to reveal it without Eddie having to even ask him. Buck trusted Eddie with his own secret. Homosexuality is not widely accepted. While this isn’t homosexuality exactly, as it seems Buck had male and female lovers. Either way, Buck entrusted this part of himself to Eddie. And Eddie…

He wants to give more of himself to Buck. It scares him, just how much he wants Buck to  _ know  _ him, in return.

Buck doesn’t prod, he doesn’t even seem to be waiting for an answer. He is just watching Eddie with a gentle smile. One that says Eddie can speak or keep his mouth closed and either way Buck won’t mind.

It is that look that makes up Eddie’s mind.

“Rather...I’m a bit envious.”

Buck really has no poker face. The fascination and desire for more information is as clear on his face as the water beneath them.

“Really?” Buck tries to tamper down the intrigue in his voice, and how easily he fails almost makes a laugh bubble up in Eddie’s throat. “Uh….envious of who? Me or him?”

“Neither,” Eddie says, chuckling for real at the look of disappointment on his face. He is as open a book as the sketches in Eddie’s hand. It is no wonder Buck offered his sketches so freely to Eddie. Buck wears his heart on his sleeve. Eddie envies that of Buck too.

“Envious of the experience,” Eddie finally clarifies. He furrows his brow. “It’s a part of myself I’ve never really had the chance to explore before.”

Realization dawns over Buck’s face. “Never had the chance or never let yourself have the chance?” He asks softly. 

And that is exactly it, isn’t it? Eddie lets out a bitter chuckle. “A bit of both? I was privately tutored at home for most of my boyhood. And then after I turned 17 I was single for a total of three months before I was arranged to be married to Shannon and we were expected to be expecting. Then I...I enlisted in the army at 18, shortly after Shannon got pregnant. In the military there were some uh….opportunities that I never seized. It was more important to focus on staying alive and getting back to Christopher.”

Eddie had already abandoned Christopher once, to go to war. He had come back and it was like he was a stranger in his own home. A stranger to his son. And his mother…? It was like Shannon had disappeared altogether even though Eddie knew she was just in the sitting room one door over. He might’ve felt attraction to men, but he’d never had the motivation to act on anything. It hadn’t been pertinent at the time.

Buck takes that information in stride, sitting back on his hands nodding as he mulls that over. He doesn’t comment further, which surprises Eddie. The man had been so curious not a moment ago, and now he’s mute? Maybe it might as well Buck doesn’t have any further questions. Eddie doesn’t really have any more answers. 

“What about you?” Eddie asks. “Are you meeting one of these people back in America?”

Buck gives a nonchalant chortle and shakes his head. “Nah, uh...none of these affairs worked out, I guess you could say.”

“So who’s waiting for you in America?” Eddie asks hesitantly, wondering if he should just change the line of questioning. 

Buck’s face turns down, a faraway look sinking his face. Eddie studies him silently. It isn’t often he sees Buck looking this serious, even in the short period of time he’s known the man. He can see it, behind the mask Buck wears to keep people out, he can see the pain Buck had mentioned he had experience with before.

Just what happened to this man? How had he still come to have such a kind soul? Perhaps Eddie would never know, but if Buck ever wishes to divulge, Eddie would lend an ear. Or a shoulder. Perhaps they could carry their combined weight together. 

“My mom,” Buck answers, his voice deepening. “And my sister, too, I guess. But before I left, me and my mom...well, let’s just say we didn’t part on the best of terms.”

Eddie hums, the rock of the ship on the waves the only motion between the two of them. 

“So you’re going back to make things right?” Eddie eventually supplies.

Buck nods, and gives a sad little smile. “Yeah. I have to.”

“You will,” Eddie assures him. If there’s anything Eddie could tell about Buck, it’s that the man didn’t give up. Who else would be so crazy as to talk a mad man down from the ledge and then annoy him into spilling all of his secrets the very next day? “You seem like the type of man who doesn’t let anything stand in his way.”

“You mean reckless?” Buck asks, a dark laugh escaping his pink lips. He wets them, and turns his face down. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

“No, I mean determined. I never would’ve had the guts to leave my parents and start a new life overseas to pursue my dreams. You’re a—” Eddie has to stop at the look of reverence that comes over Buck’s face. It’s like the man never had anybody in his corner before. But well, Eddie could understand that. He had been about to say  _ you’re amazing  _ and realized that perhaps giving a stranger (No. Not a stranger.  _ Buck. _ ) that many compliments might go right to the man’s head. “You’re inspirational.” Shit. That isn’t any better. 

The blush that overtakes Buck’s face, and the shy smile that accompanies it, makes it all worth it. Every minute Eddie’s risking being down here with Buck, even when Shannon and his parents had been giving him looks all evening last night like something is wrong with him.

Speaking of Shannon and his parents looking for him. “I should probably get back.”

He regrets saying the words, because Buck’s face falls and Eddie realizes he would do anything, including staying here on this lounge chair on the third class deck in broad daylight, just to keep the smile on Buck’s face. 

“I’ll see you at dinner then?” Buck asks, hopeful. Eddie confirms and then stands. Buck follows and the two of them stand there, staring at each other, as if daring one another to turn and leave first. But Eddie is the one who should be leaving first, he’d just said he was going. He had to go back to his own deck, to his own world.

Fuck, he doesn’t want to. 

It is better if he just leaves. Less time for Shannon to prod him about his whereabouts. 

“Do you want to keep walking?” Eddie instead blurts.

“Yes!” Buck answers way too quickly. “I mean, sure…”

_ He’s sweet,  _ the rouge thought soars through Eddie’s head before he can catch it and tuck it back inside it’s cage. He’ll have to keep better watch over that, can’t have too many of those thoughts running amok where anyone could see them on his face. 

Buck grins back at him with absolutely no idea at all what was going through Eddie’s head. So maybe, Eddie thinks, just maybe...it is alright to think about Buck just a little bit.

*

“He likes to race.” 

“Race?” Buck repeats, chewing on that for a minute. “Like race horses?”

“No, he likes to run,” Eddie corrects. The agitated look on his face says that he’s used to people thinking less of Christopher, thinking that he couldn’t do anything because of his condition. Buck immediately feels like the biggest jackass. “I know he doesn’t look like the type of kid who can run, but he likes to...in his own way. So I race against him, if that’s what he wants.”

That brings up a million more questions in Buck’s mind, but he doesn’t know how to voice them all, or even if he should.

Eddie steamrolls on, like if he loses the momentum now he would never be able to pick it back up. “It’s not running like...well, like you and I would run, but he walks as fast as he can and then sometimes I pick him up on my back and I run with him as fast as he wants. He likes the speed. Or the wind, maybe. But mostly…” A solemn pucker graces Eddie’s mouth. “Mostly, I think he just likes to feel like he can do it. I just want him to feel like he can do anything, even though I know he can’t. Even though  _ he  _ knows he can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Buck says, then clarifies. “I didn’t mean to assume earlier. I just thought...you know, you have all the money in the world, surely you must race horses unlike the rest of us who race dogs or paper boats.”

Eddie blinks, as if he hadn’t considered that. “We do race horses, sometimes. But Christopher finds that boring. Watching, at least. He much prefers it when we’re allowed to approach the jockeys and he can ask to pet the horses. It’s fun actually, up until Christopher starts begging Shannon for one of his own and I have to watch her tell me to tell him no.” He looks the other direction, avoiding Buck’s gaze. “And then I have to tell him no.”

The sun is beginning to set on the deck of the ship. Buck and Eddie had been strolling around, up and down through the first, second and third class decks, talking and talking. Endless talking. Buck likes listening to Eddie talk. He gets the feeling the man doesn’t get to do much of it.

Buck could listen to Eddie all day and all night, if Eddie would let him.

They linger by the railing on the port side of the ship.

Something passes over Eddie’s face and it darkens considerably before he clenches his fist. “What good is all the money in the world, if I can’t even give my son what he wants? I could, if I really wanted, but then he would have a horse and he could never ride it. Why torment him with the hopes of riding a horse? Isn’t it better just to tell him no and spare him the heartbreak?”

Eddie is looking at him like he is praying Buck will have all of the answers. In reality, Buck hasn’t a clue. He is floored that Eddie would even place such faith in him, but Buck knows that the older man would soon realize that he would find nothing but disappointment in him. 

“I think you’re doing the best you can,” Buck says, leaning further into Eddie, their elbows knocking into each other. “You may not give him what he wants all of the time, but you give him the best thing a father could ever give a son.”

Eddie shakes his head, biting his lip hard. “I wish I could spoil him.”

“But if you had absolutely no money in the entire world,” Buck starts. “Nothing at all, I know what you would do. You would starve to make sure Christopher was fed. You would work day in and day out so he had somewhere warm to sleep at night. You would fight to make sure that he was comfortable and happy, even if all he wanted to do was roam the world and sketch for a living.” He places a hand on Eddie’s arm. “You  _ see  _ him. You don’t see a little boy who is lacking, or broken or—a disappointment. You don’t look at him and wish he were someone else. Someone better. You see him for who he is...and you love him anyway.”

Eddie’s mouth hangs open just slightly, not enough to look surprised, but just enough that he has to clamp it closed, and Buck can see the way his jaw works and his eyes moisten.

“Is that really enough?” his voice almost cracks.

Buck would’ve killed to have a parent who cared for him as much as Eddie adored Christopher. A father who loved him no matter what mistakes he made, who loved him because of his flaws, not in spite. How can Eddie not see that? How can Eddie’s whole family not see that?

“Of course it’s enough,” Buck whispers softly, voice low but clear enough that Eddie can hear. “Trust me. You’re enough.”

Eddie breathes in ragged through his nose, clamping his hands together. For a moment, Eddie can’t meet Buck’s eye but then he turns his face again and the sun is awash along Eddie’s jawline. 

He’s ethereal. His face soft, the lines on his forehead melting away until all that was left was Eddie’s endless eyes looking up into Buck’s.

“Thank—”

“Edmund?”

_ Edmund?  _ Whatever softness had surrounded Eddie blew away and he jerks so hard into a ready stance that Buck almost wonders if he is preparing to salute a captain. Wait— is the captain behind them? 

Buck turns around and spots a group of five women, one he recognizes as Shannon, Eddie’s wife, and the other Eddie’s mother, who stares at him like he is an intruder in her home. But if Eddie’s wife and mother are here, then he and Eddie must’ve wandered back up to the first class part of the ship at some point. 

The three other women he does not recognize. They are black women, a rarity on a ship like this. The first black woman is dressed rather plainly, standing with a little boy in front of her, Christopher, who beams up at his dad. Buck assumes the woman is Christopher’s caretaker from the way she stands a tad bit farther back from the group than the others. 

The other two black women, one of whom is just a young woman likely only a handful of years older than Christopher, are dressed almost as decadent as Shannon herself. The elder of the two women has a stern face, but handsome. She glances at Christopher’s caretaker, the two of them sharing a knowing look as they continue their non-verbal assessment of Buck and Eddie standing there before them.

“Daddy!” Christopher calls out, lunging away from his caretaker and towards his father. 

Buck can tell that the smile Eddie shares with Christopher is real, as is the hug, but Eddie does not forget about the presence of his mother and wife before him. He looks on nervously as Shannon stares at Buck with wide distrustful eyes. 

“Eddie, dear, we couldn’t find you anywhere and we were worried sick,” Eddie’s mother admonishes. Her eyes flicker to Buck and then back away like she can’t stand to make eye contact for longer than a moment.

“You’re the man who rescued Edmund last night, aren’t you?” Shannon asks. “I thought you were joining us for dinner tonight.” 

She glances back at Eddie who looks down to avoid her piercing gaze. “Patience is indeed a virtue you do not possess, it seems.”

Eddie’s lips thin and then, because Buck hadn’t previously said a single word, he forces himself to speak. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Diaz. Mrs. Kelley.”

“Likewise,” Shannon croons, like it isn't a mutual feeling at all. She continues to assess him, her eyes roaming up and down and back up and lingering on his birthmark. Buck recognizes the look of wariness, of poorly concealed disgust on her mouth as she stares at it. Just as suddenly, she snaps her attention back to Eddie. “Come along and join us on our way back to the cabin. We’re to get ready soon.”

Eddie, for the first time since his mother and wife arrived, looks in Buck’s direction. “I’ll see you at dinner, Buck?” He asks it like he was uncertain Buck would still come. 

“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “I mean yes, definitely. I’ll see you all soon.” He directs the last part at the two women who continue to avoid his eye like they would catch whatever he has.  _ Catch the poor.  _

Eddie nods at him then turns and picks up Christopher and holds him at his waist. Together Eddie follows his wife and mother. Their caretaker follows slightly behind them. The little boy catches Buck’s eyes over Eddie’s shoulder, clearly unafraid and sends Buck a smile of his own. He even gives Buck a wave which Buck returns in full.

_ Turn around, Eddie. Turn around.  _ He just wants Eddie to meet his eyes one more time. One more time before he disappears below deck and back to his own wealthy world. 

Eddie turns his head as they’re descending the stairs and Buck’s heart lifts. That is all he needs to regain the courage to join the pack of hungry wolves for dinner. 

“Uh...son?” a voice to his right comes. A snap of fingers near his ear. “Son?”

Buck startles and notices that the two black women who had been standing beside Shannon and Eddie’s mother haven’t walked off. Instead they are standing right in front of Buck, looking at him like he is a little lost lamb.

“Um...sorry?”

The woman laughs, and the smile softens her face. She was older, definitely, but there is a timelessness to her face. The younger woman beside her resembles her much more in that moment, and Buck thinks that this must be her daughter.

“You have absolutely no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?” The woman says. It’s not a question, even though it is. It’s a fact, and this woman knows it, even better than Buck does. 

Buck has the good instincts to flush and look down. “No. Not really.”

“I thought so.” She purses her lips, but it ends up looking amused. She holds out her hand. “Athena Grant-Nash. This is my daughter May.”

Quickly Buck finds his manners, shaking both of their hands. “Nice to meet you both.” And it actually is, from the kind smile May gives him that matches her mothers. “Buck. Uh, Evan. Buckley.”

“Buck,” Athena hums. “Yes, best to go by Evan tonight.”

Buck rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not sure it’s going to make much of a difference.”

May laughs under her breath. “You’re probably right.”

Athena hums in agreement. “Still. Sometimes the only way to get through the forest is to wear the wolf’s skin and blend in among the pack.”

“Uh…” Buck has absolutely no idea what that means. She wants him to skin a wolf?

Athena raises an eyebrow. “What are you going to wear?”

“...This?”

May laughs out loud at that. Then she lets out a small gasp and puts her hand on her mom’s arm. “He looks about Harry’s size, doesn’t he?”

“Harry?”

“My eldest,” Athena informs him. “We’re meeting him in New York, but I got a trunk of his clothes that I know he won’t be wearing any time soon. Come on, and follow us. We’ll set you up.”

“Oh, I—” Buck puts his hands up. “That’s really kind, but I couldn’t intrude.”

“You think you’re the only one who’s ever been new to this world and had to play dress up to fit in?” Athena shakes her head. “No. I’m telling you right now, you step one foot into that dining room in this get-up—well, that’s the ticket, ain’t it? You won’t even get one foot in the door like this. Trust me, you want my help.”

Buck looks into her face, trying to see if there is anything untrustworthy there and finding nothing. He looks to May who nods and gives him a reassuring smile. 

“Alright.” He eventually surrenders, and follows them to their suite.

It’s— quite frankly it’s massive. Their suite is private, and as May adjourned to her own rooms to get ready, Buck follows Athena back to hers. From the balcony, an older white man emerges.

“Bobby,” Athena says, going to him and giving him a kiss on the cheek which the man—Bobby—returns. “This is Buck. He saved Eddie Diaz from nearly falling overboard last night.”

Bobby whistles low, sticking his hands in his pockets and giving Buck a welcoming smile that immediately puts Buck at ease. “That’s quite the save.”

He looks down, suddenly feeling like maybe he shouldn’t be talking about Eddie to just anybody. “It was nothing.”

Bobby walks up to him and pats his arm cordially. “It’s not nothing. But I get it.”

“The Kelley’s invited this poor schmuck to join us for dinner tonight. Here try this on,” Athena remarks, coming out of the room with a multi-piece suit the likes of which Buck had never  _ seen  _ let alone touched. Buck takes it from her, and immediately feels like he should give it back. 

“Well, go on,” Athena interrupts his internal panic. “Go try it on.”

So he does, quickly but with careful hands. Bobby helps him a bit and Athena stands guard, watching over them like a hawk and muttering her approval. 

“He’s just Harry’s size,” Bobby says, giving Athena a bright and loving smile.

“Just like I told ya.” She laughs, and this time without the guarded cool that she kept over her every minute they had been outside of her staterooms. “This will at least have you looking the part. You got any questions, you just glance over and any of us will help you.”

“I can’t thank you enough for this, Athena,” Buck says, and then to Bobby. “Thank you.”

He shrugs. “I grew up in this world. It’s Athena and May here who had to learn it.”

“Still,” Buck says, turning back to look at himself. A version of himself that stands tall, his hair slick back with the oil Bobby let him borrow. The suit fits him like a glove, accentuates his body and makes him look worth way more than he ever will ever amount to. “This is…”

Buck catches Athena glancing at Bobby in the mirror. “You and Eddie...well, you seem close.” She gives Buck a muted smile when he turns around. “He’s a good kid. Had a tough time of it, is all. You seem like you’ve become fast friends.”

Buck really doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks back at himself in the mirror, at the costume he had put on. This isn’t really him, but even as he stares at himself, he thinks, what if it could be? Could he be an upstanding wealthy man the same as Eddie? Or is his blood simply too red for the likes of the blues.

His mind wanders back to the thought of Eddie and Christopher, and he thinks maybe for one night he can pretend for them. He can pretend that this opulence isn’t a mirage, doomed to evaporate the moment he drew too near, but instead, his wildest dreams coming true.

*

Eddie stands in front of the mirror, fastening his wrist-watch. He stops, eyes coming to linger on his face. His sunken cheeks seem a bit fuller than they had been just the day before when he’d stood in front of this exact mirror preparing for dinner.

His stomach rolls itself into an intricate web of knots. Ropes of anticipation and excitement tangled in ropes of dread and panic and steal his appetite away altogether. He has lived another day. He hadn’t fallen over the side of the ship and died. He is alive to see his son again.

To sit through another dinner.

Buck is going to be there this evening. Despite spending the entirety of the day with him today, Eddie is still anxious to go back to him. Just to be in the same room as him again. The man has an indescribable energy about him. A thrum of heat that follows him anywhere he goes. Eddie had walked around the ship with him for hours and his feet never tired, his shoulders never ached. They hadn’t just talked about Christopher, they’d talked about Buck’s life, his adventures— adventures Eddie longed to be a part of. He wanted to travel with Buck, wanted to find their way across the Americas together. Wanted to travel to Peru and to Canada and to Mexico, to Alaska, all with Buck and Christopher by his side. 

Why is he all of a sudden allowing himself to dream of such things? Why does it feel like it is possible?

It isn’t possible. And dreaming of such things is useless, and stupid, and hurt him more than he cares to acknowledge.

He will never leave Christopher. He can’t leave the boy alone with just Shannon and his parents. He would grow up locked in a cushioned sun-room, hid away like a family pet with broken legs that had to be waited on hand and foot.

Leaving Christopher is like sentencing him to die, a slow and lonesome death. He can’t do that to his boy. Not when that is the same death Eddie’s own parents had thrust upon him..

But if he could take Christopher with him...if he and Buck could travel with Christopher...they’d buy a pair of horses and they’d let Christopher name them both. Christopher would ride with Eddie and Buck would help lead the way through the valleys of the middle until they emerged on the other side of the world, a whole new ocean to sail. They could go around and around in circles across the globe, and never have a boring day. Chris would just love it. He would find it like a game, thrilling and never-ending. 

God, he wants it. He wants it more than anything he’s ever wanted in his entire life. 

A knock breaks through his fantasies, bringing them crashing to the ground around him like glass.

Eddie stands up straight and turns around. “Rupert...what’s the matter?”

His father-in-law strides in surely, not a hesitant step in his gait. “Nothing is the matter, Edmund,” he says, in the exact same tone Shannon says it and Eddie doesn’t even bother trying to correct him anymore. Rupert knows it’s not his name just as much as Shannon does. It’s not worth arguing over anymore. “In fact, I have something for you.”

That surprises him. “For me?”

Rupert has never given him anything in all of the years Eddie had been his son-in-law.

Rupert pulls out a medium sized box from his coat. “Well, it is for you to give to Shannon for your upcoming ten year anniversary. We will be celebrating it with a party in Manhattan. All of our friends and colleagues will be there, and your gift to her must be nothing if not extraordinary.”

He hands Eddie the box. “Since your family cannot provide that, I will make sure of it.”

Eddie clenches his jaw, but he says nothing, taking the box and opening it. 

He nearly drops it. 

“It’s…” Eddie’s eyes bug out of his head. He finds his sense a second later and clears his throat. “It’s magnificent. Shannon will love it. Thank you, sir.”

“Of course she will love it. You think I don’t know my own daughter’s tastes?” Rupert chortles to himself as if it’s all a big joke. Eddie’s life is one, but it doesn’t mean he appreciates the laughter.

“Now, Edmund, with the turn of the decade, and young Christopher old enough to start schooling on his own, I do believe it is time for you and Shannon to begin trying for another.”

“What…?” Eddie does lose his breath this time. “Sir…? It’s been years—”

“I know that!” Rupert puffs his chest. “We have given it time to see how Christopher would grow up, but it is far beyond time to face the facts. Christopher is not suitable to be the heir of my company.”

“He—” Eddie nearly chokes on his own saliva. Is Rupert serious? Christopher is barely nine years old, how could his father-in-law have slammed the hammer down so early on in his life? Christopher hasn’t even had a chance to grow up and prove himself. Christopher would be perfectly capable of maintaining a company once he got a bit older. “He’s still just a boy—”

“And his condition will only get worse with age,” Rupert shakes his head. “‘No, my word is final. I will have a new heir and I would like to have Shannon with child within the year.  _ Le Cœur de la Mer  _ is my gift to you and Shannon, only on the condition that you can provide me with a normal healthy grandson worthy of my company upon his coming of age. Is that understood?”

Normal. Healthy. 

Eddie glares down at the hefty royal blue diamond in the box, encrusted in blinding white diamonds around the outline. It shimmers on it’s chain, like shackles. Eddie wonders if he was in the water right now with this in his hand would he be dragged to the bottom in an instant? 

This man is asking him to trade Christopher for millions. For a fucking  _ rock. _

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Rupert nods his head, placing his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. It burns and Eddie wants to slap the scoundrel’s hand off of him. But he doesn’t.

He keeps it in. He lets the rage simmer deep inside him, and wonders when the heat would become too much.

Rupert leaves him then. Alone with the diamond. Alone with his captor.

“The heart of the ocean,” Eddie sneers down at it. 

Without a second glance, Eddie flings it into the safe and slams the lock shut.

*

A sonata drifts through the air as they enter through the doors leading to the grand staircase. The hall is filled with people, all of whom Eddie recognizes and—regrettably—vice versa. He shakes hands, and greets them as they come up to him, but he keeps his distance when he can, slowing to walk with Christopher rather than ahead with his party. Helena is holding onto Ramon’s arm, and Shannon to her father’s. Eddie keeps his hand behind his back, rather than trying to lead Christopher. 

In front of him the rest of his party has already descended the staircase, and Eddie catches a glance of them at the foot of the stairs. But they aren’t what captures his eye. 

People walk right by a tall man in a suit, dressed to the nines like everyone else in the room, and yet standing out far more than any of the pale, lifeless faces among them. His back is to Eddie, but Eddie recognizes him regardless. 

Buck is at the foot of the stairs, off slightly to the right. He’s holding his left hand behind him at the small of his back, bowing to the women he most definitely has never met before as they pass and send him polite smiles in return. And when there aren’t people to greet, he turns to nobody in particular and pretends to shake their hands—like he’s greeting the ghost of a lady rather than the open air.

Eddie can’t help but laugh.

It’s amusing for several seconds longer, until Buck turns around and it hits Eddie that Buck doesn’t stick out from anyone here. Somehow he blends in better than Eddie (or anyone, really) had anticipated. And the humorous energy that buzzed around Eddie turned dark. Just how easy is it for Buck to become one of them?

He suddenly hates the image of Buck here. Buck is a sanctuary, something Eddie hasn’t been able to admit to himself before then, and the thought of Buck drowning in the snake pit until all that makes him  _ Buck  _ is tainted by poison of money— 

Christopher demands his attention when he starts trying to descend the stairs alone. Eddie lets him to the best of his ability, watching closely in case Chris needs anything, but he can tell that his boy is starting to hurt. So he asks Chris in the way that only they know. With a flick of his hand and raised eyebrow, Christopher gives him a relieved smile and reaches up for him. Eddie carries Christopher the rest of the way down. When they arrive at the foot of the stairs, it’s Christopher that gets Buck’s attention.

“Hi, Buck!”

Buck whips around, face turning as red as his birthmark. Eddie sets Christopher down again and as he straightens up, he notices Buck’s eyes widen as he takes in Eddie’s form. The attention is...a bit overwhelming. Buck does not hinder his gaze, consuming all of him with his eyes and Eddie...well, Eddie doesn’t mind at all. He doesn’t think he’s ever been looked at like this before. 

“H-Hi...” Buck blinks fast, flustered, and any fear Eddie might have had of Buck being swallowed whole by the masses dissipates. “Hi. Eddie.” He turns to Chris and gives him his own smile. “Chris.”

The smile on Eddie’s face makes his cheeks ache. “Buck. You clean up well.”

Buck stands up a bit straighter, swelling with a kind of pride. “Thanks.”

Eddie turns to Christopher. “Buck, I don’t think I’ve officially introduced my son, Christopher Diaz.”

Christopher waves big and bright, and Buck looks utterly besotted. “What are you talking about? The way you talk about Christopher, I feel like I’ve known him for years!”

Christopher looks absolutely thrilled by this. “Dad talked about me?”

“Of course!” Buck ducks down on bended knees without a care in the world to the fact that people are staring at him. He doesn’t give anyone notice, content to meet Christopher where he is. “You’re Eddie’s best friend! He never stops talking about you.”

“I haven’t heard very much about you…” Christopher mentions innocently, just a simple observation of a child. But it still makes Eddie’s stomach drop. 

Buck’s face doesn’t change at all. “That’s okay, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know,” Buck tells him like a promise. And knowing Buck, he probably means it.

“Really?” Christopher guffaws. “Anything I wanna know?”

Christopher’s not used to adults talking to him like a person, and not a child, or a tag-along for the adults. Eddie watches the exchange in rapture.

“Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a scout,” Eddie interjects good-naturedly. 

Buck looks up at Eddie from the ground, not even bothering to stand back up yet. He winks at Eddie, like they are the only ones in on yet another special secret. “Yes, I was. That’s why I can give my honor. Honest.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but there’s nothing but amusement in his gaze. He catches the sight of his mother behind them, and knows that he must pull Buck away from his conversation with Christopher to formally introduce him to the rest of his party. 

“Shannon,” Eddie starts. “You remember Mr. Buckley.”

Shannon turns around, her eyes moving past Buck before reversing and finally settling on him like she just noticed his presence. Her eyes widen ever so slightly, but Eddie knows that even that much on her face means she is astounded by what stands before her.

“You could almost pass for a gentleman,” Shannon says, her eyes flickering up and down Buck’s body. Eddie doesn’t let it linger, and instead quickly turns Buck to formally meet his parents, and his father-in-law.

“Charmed,” Rupert says cordially, though he sniffs about Buck like he’s waiting for the stench of sewage to start wafting through the air. 

Finally, the call for guests to begin entering the dining room sounds, and Eddie lays a hand on the small of Buck’s back to lead him forward. Christopher leaves Eddie’s right side in favor of sliding over towards Buck so that he can walk beside him and ask him questions. 

Eddie does his duty and points out everyone he can to Buck so that he doesn’t feel so overwhelmed by all the new faces. He points out John Jacob Astor, the richest man on the boat, and Benjamin Guggenheim.

Thomas Andrews, the designer and builder of the boat passes by, and Eddie reaches out. “Mr. Andrews, may I introduce Evan Buckley?”

Mr. Andrews, who has always been kind to Eddie, stops and smiles at them. “Eddie, how great to see you this evening.” He pats Eddie’s arm and then extends a hand to Buck, who takes it with a smile. “And Evan. Welcome. Are you enjoying your stay?”

Buck, never one to hide his thoughts, answers, “The third class digs have some of the softest beds I’ve ever slept on.”

Mr. Andrews raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected a third class passenger to be joining them this evening it seems. Nobody had, and that’s partly the reason he hadn’t exactly been making it widely known to everyone that Buck isn’t a first class passenger. 

“It is entirely fascinating to have you joining us. I would love to hear your perspective on the third class accommodations. You know, we have been discussing upgrades for once we return back from New York—”

“Come now, Mr. Andrews,” Shannon’s voice filters through from where she comes to stand beside them. “Surely your time is better spent on thinking of ways to improve first class rather than third? First class passengers, after all, are the ones spending the most money on accommodations. Surely, their expenses ought to be compensated in grander amenities.”

Mr. Thomas stiffens but he nods cordially at Shannon. “Mmm. Yes, quite right, Mrs. Kelley. I’ll be off now, but I shall see you when we sit down to eat. Eddie. Evan.”

Mr. Andrews walks off, and with that Shannon’s attentions are required elsewhere, for which Eddie does not mind in the slightest. Eddie continues down his roster, introducing Buck to anyone who might care to know who the stranger by Eddie’s side is. 

“Buckley?” Mr. Astor replies when Eddie introduces Buck. “Are you of the Boston Buckley’s?

Buck shakes his head like it was a question he got all the time.

“The Philadelphia Buckley’s, actually. Our names are often confused.”

Mr. Astor does not seem to recognize it, but to save face—God forbid people notice he’s not fully aware of every wealthy family in the Americas—he gives a confident smile like he recognizes the name now. 

Athena Grant passes by then, and she turns to Eddie with a pleased smile. Something glitters in her eye when she looks at Buck.

“Well aren’t you two quite the pair,” she says with a smirk after greeting them properly. She doesn’t stay to chat long, walking off towards her daughter.

“That’s Athena Grant-Nash,” Eddie tells Buck. “New money. The common belief is she married into the Nash family when their mining business struck gold—literally.” Eddie shakes his head. “But first rule of life here: rumors are never true until proven otherwise. People will say anything about anyone if it makes that person look bad and makes them look good. Athena, and her daughter with her there, May, are both steadfast and sincere women. It’s clear as day that Athena and Bobby married for love. And they’re probably the only part of our party that I can actually stand to talk to for more than five minutes.”

Buck leans closer to Eddie’s ear. “Who do you think loaned me the suit?”

Eddie’s jaw drops. He almost staggers back, but holds himself still. Instead, he takes another look down Buck’s body. Somehow the suit fit him perfectly, hugged his thighs and cinched around his waist like the garment was tailor made for him. And  _ Athena  _ loaned it to him?

“You’re kidding.”

Buck cackles, obviously finding an unexpected delight in Eddie’s dead shock, though he tries and fails to stifle it. He wants to ask Buck how he met Athena. How did he come about borrowing a suit from her? Did she offer it to him? How had she known about them? Was that what her comment earlier meant?

As their party is finally summoned to follow the stewards into the dining room, Buck turns to Christopher. “Thank you kindly for escorting me, Christopher.” Buck grins and leans down to shake his hand in the same gentlemanly fashion that Eddie had seen him do with the other guests. 

He then turns to Eddie and offers his hand. Eddie thinks he’s planning to shake it firmly, like he did with Christopher’s. Instead, while the others have walked off to take their seats, Buck gently grasps Eddie’s hand, bends down ever so slightly and brings Eddie’s hand up to kiss his ungloved knuckles. Buck never once moves his eyes from Eddie’s.

The sounds of the violins in the distance and chattering voices fade away and all Eddie can see is the deep blue sea of Buck’s eyes. They are alone together, in an empty dining room, and the white noise that perpetually rings in Eddie’s ears gradually begins to fade until all he can hear is the rapid beat of his heart. His fingers tingle with a slick sort of heat, zinging up his forearm all the way up to his chest where it spreads and spreads down to his toes. His lungs couldn’t be damned to breathe for anything else short of a miracle. 

He only emerges from his stupor when a steward nudges him to lead them to their seats. He hadn’t noticed that Christopher had already been seated when Eddie and Buck had been left behind. Eddie clears his throat, trying hard not to steal glances at Buck’s face. He must not be doing a great job of hiding it, because Shannon stares at him hard as he is seated between her and Christopher with his mother on the right of his son. 

Buck is seated on the other side of the table, a seat or two down and across from Eddie. He’s seated next to Athena and Bobby. That, at least, relaxes Eddie the slightest bit, knowing Athena and Bobby had aided Buck so. He still doesn’t understand what drove them to such generosity, but as Christopher is fond of saying: he won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

The conversation is already starting to drag on. Ramon and Rupert are speaking with Mr. Ismay about the boat—again—about it’s sheer size and how Ismay had persuaded Captain Smith to use every bit of the ship’s capability to go faster and reach Pier 59 in just three more days rather than the planned five. Eddie catches Mr. Andrews eyes at that, but the man simply grimaces and turns back to his conversation.

“I do believe that Mr. Buckley was having a riveting conversation with Mr. Andrews about the accommodations in third class earlier this evening,” Shannon states casually, yet loud enough so that the entire table can hear. Eddie shoots her a not so subtle glare.

Buck, despite the rudeness and the interested and skeptical looks coming his way from all over the table, takes it in stride. “Why, yes. I didn’t get the chance to compliment Mr. Andrews on the general room with the piano. It’s made for some of the greatest parties I’ve ever been invited to.”

“How splendid,” the Colonel Gracie exclaims. “A ship of luxury even down to the lowest class.”

Helena snorts, a bit unladylike from where Eddie’s sitting. “How luxurious could it be? People piled four to a room.”

Eddie shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Why is his mom bringing this up? He knows what Shannon is doing, but now it seems like all of them are purposefully trying to trip Buck up. Make him angry, make him lose face. As if to prove that he doesn’t belong here, that he would never belong here. And worse, he can’t even glare at his own mother. His only saving grace is Christopher turning to her and asking her if she could please cut his meat. She is only too delighted to help him cut the meat (that he had already cut into small pieces himself) into even smaller pieces.

His father cuts in with an embarrassed laugh, like Buck is the one causing a scene, rather than they themselves. “Mr. Buckley is joining us from the third class tonight. As a thank you for assisting our son, Eddie, here.”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Guggenheim interjects. “I did hear about that. Very lucky you were there, my dear boy.”

Time to change the subject, Eddie thinks. “Mr. Buckley is really quite the artist,” he puts forward knowing Mr. Guggenheim is a connoisseur of fine art, much like Eddie likes to think he himself is. “Extraordinary work.”

Helena makes a derisive sound over her glass of wine. “Of course. Like those of that Picorso or whomever you collect. I did tell you he wouldn’t amount to anything.”

“I think they’re pretty,” Christopher chimes in. Buck flashes Christopher a stunning smile that makes the kid wriggle with excitement in his seat.

Rupert wipes his mouth with a napkin before asking. “Is your work showcased anywhere I might know, Mr. Buckley?”

Buck, who holds himself graciously even with the constant bombardment of questions and comments smothering him, bites into his bread. “Well, I guess you could say I’m a bit more underground than that.”

“Surely that line of work can’t be that lucrative,” Ramon states.

“Actually, it allows me the freedom to travel,” Buck answers, voice a bit firmer now that he has the attention and no one else is trying to interrupt. “I am able to go wherever the work takes me, or wherever my fancy suits.”

“And that kind of lifestyle suits you?” Shannon asks this to Buck, but she looks at Eddie as she says it.

“Yes, ma’am, it does. I’ve been able to try many things I wouldn’t have ever been able to had I stayed in one place.”

“You’ve had the opportunity for many occupations then, eh?” Mr. Astor asks.

“Mmhmm,” Buck murmurs over a sip of water. “I worked on the overseas railroad over Florida—”

“Really?” Mr. Andrews asks, looking genuinely interested. “I have heard that it has been instrumental in the transportation of oil—” 

“Did you know a Mr. Flager, the lead engineer—” Mr. Gracie starts to ask

“I’m sure Mr. Buckley worked closer with the construction crew than with the designers,” Ramon says. 

Buck lets it slide right off his back like water, and if Eddie had been impressed by him before, he is even more so now.

Buck jumps back in to lead the conversation. “From there, I moved to Massachusetts and I met a fantastic man named Johnathan Taylor and he and I worked together to fight fires in Boston.”

“And yet you left this to travel and paint in Europe?” Shannon practically sneers it.

Buck just smiles. “I do admit that I haven’t lived long, but what I’ve found in my time is that the greatest disservice you could do yourself is to run from the call of the future. I’ve moved on from many jobs in my life, but once I found my calling I wasn’t scared to go after it.”

“And that was art?” Helena asks like Buck had told her that he decided to be a vagabond for the rest of his life. And really, it sounded like he had. But that isn’t what Eddie is holding onto. 

Buck is…he is not of this world. He lives according to himself, and Eddie is envious of the freedom he so desperately wished Buck would share with him.

“Yes.” Buck answers truthfully. “In fact, I won my ticket here in a lucky game of poker not ten minutes before the ship was set to sail.”

There’s a sweeping silence. 

Christopher is the first one to say something. “Awesome! Do you wanna play cards with me next, Buck?”

Buck laughs and gives Chris a private wink. “Sure thing, Chris. Whenever you like.” Then he looks up at Eddie. “If I hadn’t won that ticket, I never would’ve gotten the chance to be here, sitting in this gorgeous dining room, dining with you lovely people.”

He lifts his glass to the table. Eddie hears the truth in his words. Eddie lifts his glass to meet Buck’s. “To following the call of the future.”

To Shannon’s chagrin, the rest of the table lifts their glasses and repeats the toast Eddie started.

Dinner conversation goes on, Mr. Andrews excuses himself to attend to the captain. At some point Helena moves to join Shannon and the Countess towards the end of the table to talk, leaving the space next to Eddie and Christopher open. Buck moves over to the empty seat much to Christopher’s delight.

“Did you really fight fires?” Christopher asks him.

“I did. For about two years before I moved to France.”

“You’re so cool!” Christopher insists and Eddie silently agrees. 

Buck shrugs, but his cheeks flush. Eddie can’t help but be grateful. Everyone at the table had been giving him backhanded comments (and some not so backhanded) all night. There were a few, like Mr. Andrews, who seemed to genuinely like Buck, but the man in the hot seat hadn’t smiled as sweetly about those compliments as he had with Christopher’s.

Buck looks thoughtful for a moment. “Firefighting wasn’t my calling for this life. But maybe in another.” He glances up at Eddie and holds his gaze for a little while longer. Warmth blooms in Eddie’s chest, helping to melt the ice that had built around him steadily throughout the whole dinner. 

“You like drawing Buck?” Christopher asks. “Me too.”

“I’ve heard,” Buck tells him with enthusiasm. “Your dad told me.”

“You did?” Christopher turns back to him and looks up at him with sparkling eyes.

“Of course he did,” Buck confirms. “And you know your dad has good taste.”

Christopher nods frantically. “The paintings he collects are  _ awesome.” _

Eddie truly doesn’t know how he got so lucky to have a son like Christopher.

“Christopher, honey,” It’s Helena’s voice and all three of them turn to look around at her. She smiles at Christopher, but the smile hardens when she looks at Buck sitting with them. “It’s time to take you off to bed.”

“Do I  _ have  _ to?” Christopher whines. Then he seems to get an idea. “Wait! I’ll go back and get my drawings.” He whips around to Buck. “Wait here! I’ll bring my drawings back so you can see, okay?”

Buck smiles in agreement. He and Eddie lock eyes and they both know that even though Christopher wants to come back, it is unlikely that Helena will let him.

Eddie sees his father and Rupert get up with the other men still left at the table.

“We’re retiring to the smoking room for some cards and brandy,” Mr. Ismay announces. “Would you two like to join us?”

Buck looks at Eddie and somehow the both of them find themselves following the group of men to the smoking room. Neither of them really join in on the conversations, but soon Mr. Guggenheim manages to goad Buck into a game of cards. 

While Buck is distracted by that, his father pulls him aside. The two of them take a seat a bit of a ways away, far enough to have some privacy, but not enough that they can’t easily rejoin the others without them noticing they’ve been gone for long.

“What is it?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t want to be here for much longer. He’s hoping that soon he and Buck can ditch and just go hang out somewhere.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Edmundo,” his father chastises. “We have indulged you enough tonight by letting your... _ savior  _ join us at dinner. It goes without saying, you’re not to cause any more accidents like such. I don’t want to see you’ve invited a servant or something to dinner next.”

“It’s not like I slipped on purpose, father.” His father doesn’t need to know how close he had come to purposefully jumping off. It is Buck and his secret.

His father shoots him a look.

“If it hadn’t been for Buck, who would be here to secure the money, huh?” Eddie crosses his arms. “Well? I’m assuming you know what Mr. Kelly offered me for another son.”

His father shifts uncomfortably, but he doesn’t deny it. 

Eddie shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

His father catches Eddie’s elbow and squeezes hard. “You are not to continue associating with that man. You have a duty to your family.”

Eddie yanks his arm out of his father’s grip. “I’m doing my duty to my family, or have you not noticed? The least you could let me do is thank him.”

“Edmundo Diaz, I need your solemn word.”

“Fine!” he takes a step back. He glares at his father, who glares at him right back. Eddie shakes his head, disappointed to see what his father has become. He strides back to the card table and takes a seat hard. Buck turns his head, brow furrowing at the look on Eddie’s face. 

Buck rises slowly then, and announces. “Thank you very much for the lovely dinner and game of cards, but I must be getting back now.”

Ramon crosses his arms and sniffs, coming back to the group. “Yes, I do believe that is a good idea.”

Mr. Astor stands up, shaking Buck’s hand. “Very good to meet you, Mr. Buckley.”

Buck shakes hands with Mr. Guggenheim and Mr. Gracie as well. Rupert gives him a short nod. Buck lightly shakes Ramon’s hand as well. 

Finally, he turns to Eddie and sticks his hand out in invitation. He’s reminded of how Buck had pressed his lips to Eddie’s hand just earlier that evening and it had felt like an explosion had gone off inside him. Eddie takes Buck’s hand slowly, letting himself soak in the warmth of Buck’s fingers as the tips of them brush over Eddie’s pulse. Something stiff pokes into his palm as Buck pulls his hand back. The look in his eye clues Eddie in not to look at the note he’d left in Eddie’s hand until he could leave the prying eyes in the room.

Eddie lingers in the smoking room a bit longer, about ten or fifteen minutes or so, until he stands up and tells them he’d like to go back to his room and check on Christopher and perhaps retire for the night.

Nobody questions him, but his father does eye him suspiciously. Eddie doesn’t see his father turning back to their bodyguard and whispering something in his ear as he makes his exit.

Once he’s outside, he ducks into a corner and opens the note.

_ Follow the call of the future— meet me at the clock. _

Eddie’s heart beats out of his chest as he reads and re-reads the note. Oh god, he thinks. He’s going to do it, isn’t he? Completely disobey his father and everything his family wanted from him. But the ache to join him was too strong. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to resist. Soon the anxiety melts into anticipation. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but he finds he doesn’t care. He’s going to meet Buck and they’ll see what they get up to from there.

He isn’t going to ignore the call. Not this time.

*

The bannister of the grand staircase, made of solid English Oak if Buck is correct, cut into his lower back as he leans against it. He stares at the ornate clock as the small hand continues to tick on and on past. Buck doesn’t mind waiting for Eddie. He knows that eventually the man will join him. He isn’t even worried that Eddie might not want to meet with him, or that Eddie might be kept from meeting him.

He has faith, and he just knows, even as the minutes tick on and on and on, that Eddie will show. The hall is empty, for the most part. Dinner is over and not many linger on the staircase, or even in the dining room at the foot. There are a few stewards and officers walking about, a few maids cleaning. But other than that, the hall is mostly silent other than the ever-present sounds of the ship chugging along underneath him.

Buck stares at the clock and lets his thoughts linger on Eddie.

Dinner was a...unique experience to say the least. Formally meeting Eddie’s family and some of the richest people on the ship was not what he had been expecting. He knew that they weren’t going to like him, that the simple fact that they knew he had no money meant that he never had a chance of them liking him. 

And Eddie...the man had tried to throw Buck a life preserver throughout the evening, but Buck could tell the man was drowning himself. If this was the type of ordeal Eddie had to deal with every day of his life, well...well, maybe Buck could sort of understand why he had felt like there was no way out. Why jumping off the back of the ship might seem like a good idea in a fit of panic induced terror. 

Christopher, on the other hand, was like a buoy. A shining savior in the vast open empty. The boy was the apple of his father’s eye, there was no doubt about that. He heard Eddie gush about Christopher before, had seen the way the man opened up like never before when talking about Chris, and yet seeing them together had been nothing short of eye-opening. While Eddie and Christopher didn’t speak much during dinner, Buck was always watching them. 

Eddie was always attentive to Christopher, but not pushy. It was obvious the boy liked to do things for himself, but if he did need anything, all he had to do was look at Eddie once and the man knew exactly what he needed. It was a non-verbal dance for the two of them. Practiced. The only time Christopher had to ask an adult for help outright was when he was attempting to distract his grandmother.

In a way, Buck’s wish had come true. He had gotten to eat in the fancy first class dining room with Eddie and Christopher, even though the two had been sat across from him. If he had it his way, he would’ve been sitting right there beside them. Not that he had his way very often. The highlight of his evening had been right before dinner when he had the privilege of being escorted by the two Diaz boys on either side of him, and right after dinner, when the spots beside them had opened and Buck was able to steal a few precious moments with the both of them for himself.

Following dinner, in the smoking room, Buck let himself lose in poker, both to assuage the elder gentleman’s pride, and so that he could keep an eye on Eddie who had been dragged into the corner by his father. There were harsh words being thrown about, even Buck could see that from a distance, but he couldn’t hear them. In some situations, not unlike this one, hearing wasn’t a necessity to understand what was going on. 

He had caught the eye of the Diaz family bodyguard—Lovejoy, Buck thinks he overheard at one point. He had seen the man around multiple members of Eddie’s family. Mr. Kelley, and Eddie’s father quite often. Although the man seemed to be guarding Shannon most often. Not Shannon and Eddie, or even Shannon and Christopher, but just Shannon. The man was always watching everyone, and right now Buck could see the man’s eyes were planted firmly on  _ him _ , although his ears were listening in another direction. 

When Eddie marched back over to the table, Buck folded his cards and announced he was ready to leave. Eddie looked pale, his eyes somehow turning an unnatural shade of grey, like all the color had been sapped out of him. That was when Buck had the idea. All he had to do was wait for Eddie to get here, and then they could finally go have some fun on their own.

Soft footsteps catch Buck’s ear, and finally he turns around.

Eddie lingers on the third stair from the top, looking up at him. The grey sheen is still present in Eddie’s eyes, but with the smile slowly forming on the man’s face, the color seems to be returning. 

Buck holds out his hand. “You want to go to a real party?”

Eddie hesitates for only one moment, and Buck knows what he’s thinking about. But soon enough, the hesitation dies and Eddie marches up the last few steps and takes Buck’s hand.

As soon as they’re out the door and onto the deck, the crisp night air ignites an excitement in Buck’s lungs. He lets out a whoop for joy as he leads Eddie down the stairs to the third class general room where the music was already blasting loud and jubilant.

Eddie’s face is awash with apprehension but the further Buck draws him into the crowd, the less alarmed Eddie becomes. Buck doesn’t hesitate to head over to the bar, manned by another third class passenger. He grabs two beers, one for him and one for Eddie, and hands the older man his own before taking a big swig.

Eddie is bobbing his head ever so slightly with the beat as he gazes around the general room with wonder. There’s a group of men in the corner with instruments, all their own, playing music together like they’d been performing together all their lives. In the corner, he spots Tommy, a friend he and Josh had made pretty soon upon arriving on the  _ Titanic. _ The man had been impressed that they’d won their way on with poker, telling them he himself had to work for ages in the coal mines before he could make enough money to leave the homeland and travel to America for better opportunities. He is standing with Josh, the both of them drinking and leaning in to each other. Buck raised an eyebrow at that. Right at that moment, Josh catches Buck’s eye and drags Tommy over. 

“Buck!” Josh calls out, launching himself across the crowd to give Buck a hug. Buck gives Tommy a hug as well and the two of them stare at Eddie like he is a giant squid come aboard the ship.

“Well, look at you,” Josh teases, elbowing Buck in the ribs. “Proving me wrong.”

At Eddie’s confused look, Buck quickly tries to blow it over. “Josh, Tommy, this is Eddie.” 

The two of them shake Eddie’s hand as Josh’s maniacal grin continues to grow.

“Eddie, this is Josh. I won the both of us the tickets on this beast! And this is Tommy, our neighbor.”

The music changes then and a quicker Irish jig begins to play. Tommy grabs Josh’s hand and yells, “Come on now, you can’t not dance with an Irishman to an Irish jig!”

“You heard the man!” Buck shouts at Josh. “Go with him!”

Josh gets dragged off with Tommy, and Buck snatches the drink out of Eddie’s hand. 

“Let’s go!” He starts to pull Eddie along with him to the center of the dance floor.

“Wait, Buck! No, wait, Buck!” They’re in the middle of the dance floor now. Buck stands before him, enjoying the slight height difference as he looks down at Eddie.

“Oh come on, Eddie, you can’t tell me you don’t want to dance.” Maybe it is the beer, or maybe it is the tug in his gut telling him to go with it, but Buck runs a finger along Eddie’s arm until it reaches the man’s hand and slips his fingers into his hold. “I saw you bobbing your head. Do you like to dance?”

Eddie steals a couple of glances over his shoulders, like he’s worried the other passengers around him will judge him for dancing. Buck leans down again and wraps his other hand around Eddie’s back, letting it linger just at the center where the muscles spread taut and firm.

Eddie glances down at their conjoined hands, and then back up at Buck’s face. Then he rests his free hand on Buck’s waist. They step a bit closer, both out of necessity given the hoards of people at their backs, and because Buck can’t resist stepping closer until their faces are near touching. 

And then they’re off. 

“I don’t know the steps!” Eddie shouts with a smile in his voice. 

“I don’t know either!” Buck shouts back and continues to jump and spin and swing the two of them around the dance floor. The music seems to get faster and faster, and Eddie gets close enough that he can feel his chin on his shoulder. His shoulders are considerably more relaxed. If Buck’s hand slips lower down Eddie’s back to rest, neither one of them cares to say anything about it. 

Then Buck catches the eye of Josh and Tommy dancing on the raised stage, and he just knows he has to take Eddie up there. As he was expecting, Eddie protests, but soon enough, he doesn’t care and continues to dance with him. 

Their hands slip apart and Eddie finds himself a few feet from Buck, but that’s alright. Buck doesn’t know much tap dance, definitely isn’t a professional, but he knows enough to bust the steps out right there, looking to Eddie to see if he is impressed with his dance. Eddie throws his head back and laughs but not like he thinks what he sees is funny, or embarrassing, but a euphoric laugh, like he’s having the time of his life. And that is exactly what Buck is hoping for. 

Then, something most unexpected happens. 

Eddie walks to the center of the dance floor, right beside Buck and throws his hands out to the side. He steps out in front of him in a sway so graceful his limbs look like water. His arms wrap around his waist, and his hips sashay in perfect harmony. Somehow he matches the beat, moving his feet inward, before he starts a series of shuffling—almost looking like he’s kicking his feet backwards—all while gliding his arms in swift and somehow delicate movements. He does a pair of half aborted kick steps into a stomp that looks almost aggressive but still precisely controlled. He arches his arm over his head and Buck realizes where he’s seen something like this before. In Spain, when he had gone to a matador show. With one final kick, Eddie spins into a final pose and Buck stares at him in utter shock.

Buck has been attracted to men before, but somehow he doesn’t think he’s even been more wholly and madly attracted to another man—to anyone really—than he is to Eddie in this moment. 

“Holy  _ shit!”  _ Without another thought, Buck lunges forward, scooping Eddie back up into his arms, swinging him around in their own personal dance. They fly off together and Buck lets his hands roam up and down Eddie’s back, down his sides, tries to force himself not to touch his hips, but that in itself is a challenge he finds exceptionally laborious.

Eddie hasn’t stopped smiling once since they started dancing, and Buck is loath to stop, but if he’s running out of breath, he knows Eddie must be too, so he finds a place for them to rest and drink another beer.

Before Buck can take a sip, Eddie throws his head back and chugs the thing down like it was water. Eddie will never cease to surprise him. When Eddie sees his jaw dropped, he nearly spits up the remainder of his beer. “What? Never seen a rich boy slam back a beer?”

Buck flusters and Eddie continues on, leaning forward. “There’s a lot you’ve not seen of me, Buck.”

Buck feels the gravity shift as he leans forward. “Where did you learn to dance like that?”

“That?” Eddie asks, looking over his shoulder at the stage that he had previously dominated. “My abuela taught me when I was a boy. A little bit of the Cha Cha, a little Paso Doble. I haven’t done that in years.” He shrugs like it’s nothing, but Buck can see how much joy that little bit of dancing brought Eddie. “It’s fun.”

“Hell yeah, it’s fun!” Buck slaps his back lightly, letting his hand linger and hold onto Eddie’s shoulder. “That was magnificent! I’ve never seen anybody move like that.”

Eddie’s face does turn pink in the harsh lights of the third class general room, but somehow, he’s still the most beautiful being in the whole room. Then he swigs back the rest of his beer and lets out a burp. He laughs at Buck’s surprised face. “I don’t always have to be a perfect gentleman.” 

Buck throws his head back and laughs. “Who needs to be a gentleman, when you can burp like a man!”

Eddie pretends to wipe something off his face, but he’s grinning all the while. “Yeah, and spit like a man.”

This time, it’s Eddie who pulls him back into dancing, and there’s absolutely nothing that could keep Buck from going with him.

After a while, completely wiped from the dancing, and the alcohol making any move sluggish, Buck and Eddie find themselves stumbling out of the general room and out onto the third class deck.

The cold wind blows over their cheeks, turning their faces red even though they had since calmed down slightly from the high of the dance.

Eddie starts to sing a song with a laugh. Buck thinks he’s heard this one before, even though it’s a bit slurred, huffed out between breaths. A folk song that Buck remembers his mom singing to him when he was a kid. Back before she started looking at him like she’d rather he not be there. Back before he had said those awful things to her. Not that he hadn’t meant them and not that they hadn’t been true. He just wishes he hadn’t yelled them in her face. Hadn’t turned around and swore she would never see him again if he had anything to say about it. 

Eddie’s singing voice is nice. Smooth, even with the shudders of cold and a bit of chattering teeth. Buck leans further into his side, letting his warmth soak into Eddie. They walk their way up back to first class slowly, brushing their arms and hands against one another without fully touching. 

Buck nearly knocks into a lounge chair, and Eddie guffaws, before moving the both of them to take a seat side by side, not at all fitting together on the chair. Both of their legs are hanging off the ends, but their torsos are touching and fuck, it feels good to have his body pressed ito Eddie’s like this. Buck would wrap his arm around Eddie if he thought he might be able to get away with it. Instead, he settles for pressing in closer to Eddie, everything touching up to their shoulders. Their heads only separated by a few inches. 

Buck follows Eddie’s gaze up, looking at the sky full of stars.

“How far away do you think it is?” Eddie asks, reaching a hand up as if to stroke a pattern among the glittering dots. “A thousand miles? Two thousand?”

“Maybe ten thousand,” Buck murmurs. “It would take years to get there.”

“I don’t think I’d mind years,” Eddie says with a small smile. “It’s longer than five days.” His pinkie moves, pushing gently against the back of Buck’s hand. Buck shuts his eyes for just a moment, letting the feeling of Eddie’s fingers wash over him. His fingers spread on their own and the back of Eddie’s fingers weave with his. It’s barely holding hands, not really, not truly, but it feels like he’s never been touched like this before. Maybe he hasn’t. Not in the silent of night, not with the blackened waves surrounding them for miles on either side. The sky above might take years to get to, but he wouldn’t mind traveling the distance with Eddie.

Even if they are more likely to touch the bottom of the sea faster than they’d touch the stars. 

Eddie turns his head to the side and Buck can feel his eyes on his face. For a moment he doesn’t dare turn his face, seized by a sudden fear that if he turns to look, Eddie will disappear into a cloud of smoke. 

But the pull to look at Eddie is stronger than any anchor of fear that may have tied itself around Buck’s foot. 

Like this, their faces aren’t even an inch apart. They are close enough to breathe each other’s oxygen. He can taste Eddie just like this, but he wants to taste him deeper, drink him in wholly. Eddie’s eyes flicker slowly across Buck’s face, not one inch of unskin untouched by the gentle caress of Eddie’s warm eyes.

He would give anything,  _ anything,  _ to stay like this. He knows this to be certain. When the ship docked, he would stay with Eddie. If Eddie would have him, then Buck would never let go. 

Never.


	2. Chapter 2

**_18 hours until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

  
  


The morning comes and Eddie wishes it hadn’t. He dreamt of last night, over and over, and it felt like he hadn’t slept a wink even though he had gone back to his room only a short while after leaving the party. The songs from last night lingered in his head, but that wasn’t what kept him awake. Instead, it was the picture of Buck’s face, so close to Eddie’s, that had kept his eyes open the entire night. 

In his dreams, he visited Buck. In his fantasies, they stayed the whole night squished together on that lounge chair looking up the stars. As endless as space, so had that moment where Eddie let himself touch Buck’s hand, let his body press into Buck’s. It had belonged to no one but him and Buck. 

When he at last was forced up to have breakfast, Eddie didn’t bother to speak very much. He answered questions asked of him. He said good morning to his son and kissed him on the cheek. But when he went off with Carla, it left him and Shannon to breakfast by themselves.

It’s a quiet affair, to which Eddie prefers. Nothing but the clanking of forks on plates and the sounds of the waves splashing far far below their private promenade. 

“You’re looking tired this morning,” Shannon comments, wiping her mouth with a napkin and then setting it on her lap.

Eddie looks up at her for the first time that morning. “Exhausting night.”

“Oh yes,” Shannon agrees. “Cards and brandy can do that to a man.”

He eyes her warily. She stares back, as if waiting for a confession. It hits Eddie then. She knows. There’s no point hiding it any longer, not that he is trying to do that per se. He just isn’t planning to give her any information about his private life that she doesn’t need to know. His moments with Buck...their time together. It feels precious. Limited. And he isn’t going to taint those memories by having Shannon trample all over them.

Eddie continues not to say anything. He knows it irritates Shannon when Eddie refuses to continue a conversation, but this is the last conversation he wants to have with her.

Shannon, in her frustration, is the one to throw decorum to the wind.

“You could’ve taken any mistress,” she bites. “Anyone.”

She doesn’t mean that. She doesn’t mean  _ anyone.  _ She means any  _ woman.  _ Any woman of upstanding repute.

“I don’t have a mistress,” Eddie retorts. “And I’ve never taken one. You know this.”

“I know this…” Shannon nods, her lips pursed. There is an anger there, an anger Eddie always recognized in her. “Yes. Maybe I did. But I didn’t expect you to run off to some scum filled party with a fucking  _ sewer rat!”  _ She slams her hands down onto the table, her plate and cutlery scraping loudly. A butter knife clatters to the floor.

Eddie shakes his head, his hands clenched together tightly. “I knew it. I  _ knew  _ you had Lovejoy follow me—”

“Of course I did!” Shannons nearly screeches. “You go running off with some  _ whore—” _

“Stop it!” Eddie finally stands up. “Don’t call him—”

“I will call him whatever I please, Edmund, because that is what he is!”

“We have done nothing! Nothing! I don’t understand why you are—”

Shannon shoves everything on the table to the floor, glass shattering alongside smatterings of food. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or not! You are  _ my  _ husband and I will not be made a fool! You flaunt him around and you spend all your time with him, don’t even try to deny it.”

Eddie presses a hand to his forehead before crossing his arms. But no, he doesn’t deny it.

“You are to stop seeing him, and if I find out you are, I won’t hesitate, Eddie. I simply will not. I will find a way to leave you with nothing. You hear me? Nothing. You will never see Christopher again.”

Eddie stiffens in an instant. He clenches his jaw and wills himself to not make a single facial expression.

Shannon shakes her head and breathes out harshly. “You will do what you are meant to. We’ll get to New York, have another child and that will be the end of that. We’ll have a healthy heir and then you can go fuck whomever you like.” 

Eddie stands completely still, not even breathing until Shannon leaves, slamming the door to the promenade closed. 

He stares at the mess on the ground. He feels like if he moves a single inch, everything will become real and the threat of losing his son will be all the more tangible.

He can’t let Shannon take Christopher away from him. 

But he doesn’t know if he has the strength to stay away from Buck.

He doesn’t know how long he stays outside before he finds himself back inside his suite, looking around at all the useless shit that filled the place. He doesn’t care about any of it. Not the clothes, not the furniture, not the ornaments. His paintings...they’re beloved but he could live without them. The only thing that matters is Christopher, that is the only thing of value Eddie could ever call his. He can’t lose him. 

He sits down in the private study off the side of their room. All he can do is stare up at the photo propped up on the mantle on the fireplace beside the desk. A photograph of Eddie, Shannon and Christopher. His boy is smiling brightly, without a care in the world, while he and Shannon behind him stand ramrod straight. Shannon has no smile upon her face, but neither does Eddie. Had either of them ever once been happy together since they were married? No memory comes to mind.

Actually, he can think of one moment. Right after Christopher was born. Shannon had cried and hugged Christopher, and kissed Eddie and for one moment, one single moment, they had been a real family. Perhaps it was just the pure relief of having their little boy, alive, after hours of nothing but blood and pain, Christopher stuck inside Shannon and unable to breathe.

The euphoria of breath was enough to break through the black fog that had been their eleven month old marriage.

But something shifted after that, something Eddie had never been able to put his finger on. Shannon began keeping her distance. She would avert her eyes, wouldn’t look either of them in the face. And when she did there was nothing but guilt and resentment in her eyes. It got worse the more Christopher’s condition declined. Then she would avoid them as much as she could.

Eddie didn’t blame her for wanting to get out. She hadn’t wanted to get married to him anymore than he had wanted to be married to her. They didn’t know each other at all. Shannon blamed him for everything that went wrong in her life—Eddie didn’t need her to say it to know it was true. She wanted out, she had always wanted out. And yet somehow, she was on board with the idea of another child. Why? Eddie truly did not understand.

There’s a firm knock at the door. Eddie turns back and almost tells whoever it is to go away. He doesn’t need to say anything in the end, because his mother walks in without another word. After all, knocking, to Helena, is not a request to enter, but rather a warning that she is entering.

“Mother,” Eddie greets dryly. He turns his head back around to stare at the mantle and the family picture. He sighs inwardly. He doesn’t think the three of them have ever been a true family. And really, what hurts him the most is not that Shannon doesn’t love him. It’s that Christopher has to live with the knowledge that he is nothing but a regret to his mother. He would shield Christopher from that for as long as possible, if the boy hadn’t already picked up on it on his own.

“Edmundo,” Helena says. That does get Eddie to turn around. His mother so rarely uses his full name. Both she, and his father, seem to prefer the more English nickname, as that is easier to hide. Eddie nearly rolls his eyes. If his mother and father hate the fact that he has a Mexican name, why didn’t they just overrule Abuela’s choice for him? 

“What is it, Mother?” Eddie ends up asking, wanting this conversation to be over. He already knows what she wants to talk about, and really, Eddie has had quite enough for one day. 

“I think you know.”

“I do know,” Eddie says standing up and facing her finally. “I know, and I don’t want to talk about it. I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?” She asks. “Do you really? You’re still young Eddie, you don’t know everything.”

“I heard it all from Shannon this morning, and from Father last night. I know I have to stop seeing Buck because he’s just a  _ third class ruffian  _ and I have to have another child with Shannon before the year is up. I  _ know,  _ Mother!”

Helena sighs and crosses her arms. “It is what’s best for all of us, Eddie. It’s what’s best for Christopher.”

Christopher? She is going to sit here and tell him what’s best for  _ his  _ son?

“How can you talk about Christopher to me?” Eddie seethes, taking a step back like being anywhere near her would burn his skin. “You didn’t even  _ want  _ me to raise him! You forced me into the army before Christopher was even born and when I got hurt and came back you wanted me to re-enlist again and leave him all alone with a mother who couldn’t even  _ look  _ at him!”

“Who else would be bringing income to the household if not you!” His mother huffs. “That was your duty, Eddie. And yet you chose to stay here and leave all of the burden to your father and I to provide! You cannot do that anymore.”

“And what? You think another child will be providing for the family? Another mouth to feed?”

“Rupert has our family secured for life if we are able to provide him with a more suitable heir.”

Eddie shakes his head. He honestly couldn’t even believe the audacity.

“Christopher is  _ my  _ son! What, you all expect me to put that on him? To tell him he isn’t good enough for his own family and they have to make a new,  _ better  _ baby to replace him?”

Helena purses her lips and then sits up a bit straighter. “I wasn’t going to bring this up with you until we docked in New York, but I think that you are not grasping the full extent of what is expected of you.”

She stands up.

“I think Christopher should come live with your father and I permanently,” she states with a straight face. “You will be busy assisting Rupert and Shannon will be busy raising the new baby. You won’t have the time to give Christopher what he needs.”

Eddie stares at her blankly. Somehow the rage has boiled up so high it consumed him entirely and he had become numb. He couldn’t move or speak. He doesn’t know if he is even still breathing.

“You—” Eddie chokes on the thought. “You want to take my son away from me?”

“You can still visit him—” 

Eddie shakes his head viciously. “You want to take  _ my son!” _

“He won’t be your son anymore if Shannon divorces you and leaves our entire family with nothing! Do you not understand, Eddie? Rupert and Shannon’s money is the  _ only  _ thing keeping this family out of the gutters! You want what’s best for Christopher? He needs the money only Rupert can provide for his treatments and his surgeries and his medicine and his caretakers. How will Christopher live without that? You will damn that boy to death if you continue down this dangerous path, Edmundo and I will not stand by and let you drag my grandson down with you!”

Eddie’s back bumps into the wall, and it’s only the sharp pain of the brick into the skin of his back that shocks him back into reality.

His mother doesn’t even look sorry about a single thing she yelled in his face. She thinks...she thinks Eddie is  _ dragging  _ Christopher down. 

And that is when Eddie knows that he has lost all of his family. There is no one on his side.

His mother finally uncrosses her arms, like all of the energy has been sapped out of her. Like this is a burden on  _ her.  _ She turns and heads for the door. “Think about it, Eddie. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

And with that, she leaves.

Eddie couldn’t stay inside anymore. He couldn’t be trapped inside this lavish prison, waiting to die in luxury. The same feeling of agony that he felt the night he nearly jumped creeps back in. It seeps into his bones, taints his blood as it’s pumped through every vein in his body. The familiar tug to do something,  _ anything,  _ to end the overwhelming pain.

He catches sight of Christopher’s smiling face in the picture on the mantle again and for a moment of reprieve he remembers that there is one thing keeping him anchored here to earth.

He needs to clear his head, get somewhere where he isn’t constantly reminded of what a failure he is. 

He marches out of the room, calling for Carla.

She comes out soon enough and asks what he needs. “Can you please prepare Christoper to come on deck with me? I would like to spend some time with him.”

Carla looks curiously at him, her eyes narrowing only slightly, before she slaps a smile onto her face. “Of course, sir. You don’t need my permission to play with your son.”

Eddie smiles gratefully as she goes and gets Christopher ready, helping put his shoes on, and gathering his coat. Eddie helps him put that on and gathers his crutches. 

“You go have some lunch, Carla,” Eddie tells her. “You can expect us back before dinner.”

“Are we gonna go play on deck, dad?” Christopher asks as he trots happily alongside Eddie. 

“We can go do whatever you’d like, Chris,” Eddie says. “We can go to the library and pick out some books. Or we can go eat a little snack at the Verandah Cafe, or we can go play shuffleboard—”

“Shuffleboard!” Christopher shouted, his choice pretty obvious to Eddie from the moment he had brought it up. 

“Sounds like a plan, buddy,” Eddie laughs, enjoying the genuine enthusiasm his boy has. He’s glad at least someone is having fun on this ship. “Let’s get a snack to go and then we’ll go play shuffleboard.”

A stewardess is nice enough to pack up a couple of muffins and some lemonade for him and Christopher and they take it with them to the second class deck where the shuffleboard court was laid out. There was a family playing in front of them, but they didn’t mind. They took a seat on a couple of deck chairs and ate their muffins while they waited.

“Hey, daddy?” Christopher says.

“Hmm?”

“Is Buck coming to dinner again tonight?”

Eddie’s chest ached. He takes a look at his boy and slowly shakes his head. “No, he’s not.”

“Oh.” Christopher looks down in disappointment. “Why not? You should invite him again.”

Eddie drags a hand down his face. “It’s complicated, Chris.” He doesn’t know how to explain it to him in a way that he would understand. In a way that wouldn’t hurt him.

“Mommy, and grandma and grandpa don’t like him, huh?”

Eddie’s head snaps up. “How did—?”

“I saw the way they looked at him. It wasn’t nice.”

“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “‘No, it wasn’t nice.”

Christopher nods like it made complete sense to him. And hell, maybe it does. He thought he had learned not to underestimate Chris by now, but apparently he still needs to keep learning.

“But you like him, right?” Christopher asks again, his voice digging for a very specific answer. Eddie knows he can’t lie to Christopher, anymore than he can lie to himself.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I like him a lot.”

Christopher beams, brighter than the reflection of the mid-day sun off the water. “I like him too.” 

How easy it would be to pretend Eddie lived a different life. One where it doesn’t matter what his family thinks, what anybody thinks, and he could choose to live his life with Christopher however he sees fit. 

That is another lesson Eddie had failed to learn. How to stop disappointing himself with cruel fantasies. How he wishes he could talk to Christopher about what he really wants to talk about. Talk to him about how he feels like he’s drowning, splashing frantically in the water and screaming at the top of his lungs and no one can hear him.

But he can’t put that on his son’s shoulders. He doesn’t deserve that. Christopher deserves more than that from his parents. It doesn’t matter how Eddie feels, he has to put Christopher first. Always.

“I don’t want this boat to ever dock,” Christopher says, but he doesn’t say it in the way that an excited kid would, a kid who wants to continue having fun. He says it almost like he’s dreading docking.

Eddie narrows his eyes. “Yeah? Why not?”

Christopher shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m scared.”

Eddie schools the shock on his face. “Scared? Of what?” He doesn’t want to say there’s nothing to be scared of, because it isn’t true. There is plenty to be scared of.

“I heard grandma telling grandpa she told you that I was going to live with them after the boat docks.”

Flames rise in Eddie so fast he nearly stands up right that instant to go find his parents and give them a piece of his mind. He couldn’t believe this! How could they have been so foolish to speak so freely about something like this around their grandson? Did they think he couldn’t understand him? Did they think Christopher  _ that  _ incapable?

The fire dies just as soon as it rises when he catches the look of utter despair on Christopher’s face. Eddie gets down on one bent knee in front of Christopher. 

“No, mijo.” Eddie shakes his head, squeezing Christopher’s hands to convey how serious he’s being, even if Christopher can’t look him in the eye. “That’s not going to happen. Do you hear me, Christopher? You are my son, and I do not care what grandma or grandpa think is best, I  _ know  _ what’s best for you is to be with me. I know it in my soul. You don’t ever have to worry about that, alright? Never.”

A couple of stray tears flow down Christopher’s cheeks, and Eddie swears to God he will not let his parents get away with this. 

“Oh, mijito, come here.” Eddie wraps his arms around his boy, and Christopher clings to him like he hadn’t since he was a baby. “Shh. I will never leave you, you hear me? You saved me, Christopher. You saved me more times than I can count. Did you know that?”

Christopher shakes his head, and Eddie peppers a kiss or two to his forehead. When Christopher pulls away, Eddie strokes his cheek.

“I love you, Christopher,” Eddie tells him finally. “Don’t you ever doubt that.”

“I won’t,” Christopher smiles and sniffs a bit before he looks over to see the shuffleboard court abandoned. That seems to cheer him up quickly. “Dad, it’s our turn now!”

Eddie follows Christopher’s tugs and heads over to the board. 

He is going to choose to smile and have fun with his son while he still can. 

While the Titanic is still above water.

*

Getting back into first class proves impossible. Buck almost wishes he hadn’t returned Athena’s suit last night. He is chased from the first class deck on the starboard side almost as soon as he tries to enter past the gate boundaries. Buck chooses to sneak up over the railing once he is sure no officers could see him. He makes it all the way to the entrance of the first class accommodations but the door is guarded by not one, but two stewards who claim they don’t remember him from the night before and refuse to let him in.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself. He needs to find Eddie, he just—he just has this feeling that he needs to speak to him. To tell him the truth about how he feels, damn the consequences. Eddie is worth it. 

If only these bastards would let Buck pass so he could find him.

He walks past a lounge chair on the third class deck and spots a jacket, an expensive looking jacket, just abandoned on the chair. 

Surely it won’t hurt if Buck just borrows the jacket for now, and once he is able to find Eddie he’ll return it. Simple. He just needs to not look, well, like himself right now. He needs to look the part to get past the officers manning the gates between the decks. 

It does help for a little while, Buck manages to scour the entirety of the first class deck and doesn’t find Eddie anywhere. He can’t risk checking the dining rooms or the cafes, now that so many first class passengers know his face—and know he’s not first class.

As he’s walking back to the gate separating first from second class, he spots two figures, a young boy in crutches and a taller man by the second class deck shuffleboard.

“Eddie!” Buck gasps to himself. Eureka!

As Buck flies down the steps, he calls out Eddie’s name, not even caring about the other second class passengers who spot him and shake their heads at the rudeness of being so loud in a public space.

Eddie stiffens at the sound of his name. He turns around slowly, but he doesn’t look happy to see Buck, or even surprised. He looks worried, almost uncomfortable.

“Hey,” Buck says, walking forward. Eddie doesn’t move a single inch, and he refuses to look Buck in the eye. Christopher, however, leaps towards him with an enormous grin on his face.

“Buck!” 

Buck finds himself with his arms full of Christopher. It’s nice—god, it’s really nice, getting to hug Christopher and having the little boy look up at him like he is someone worthy of being looked up to. Buck has never had anyone look at him like that. Sure, he loves children, and gets along with them well, but there is something about the way Christopher seems to think he is worthy of admiration, a near stranger...that just leaves Buck breathless.

It is a kind of selfless love Buck knows Eddie gave to his son, that allows his son to give it away to others so freely.

“Hi Chris!” Buck greets back as enthusiastically as he allows himself to, what with Eddie looking more and more uncomfortable as the minutes pass and Christopher keeps chattering on to Buck like nothing is wrong.

Something is obviously wrong. 

“Christopher, it’s your turn,” Eddie finally says, making to hand Christopher the stick.

“Why don’t we give Buck a turn?” He turns back to look up at Buck. “You wanna play shuffleboard with us, Buck?”

“Uh…” Buck looks up at Eddie who is standing with his hand balled into a fist and is biting his lip. He stares at the ground. “Um, t-thanks, Chris, but maybe I better—”

“Come on!” Christopher whines and then leaves Buck’s side to go to his dad. “Please, dad? I wanna play with Buck too!”

Eddie looks down at him, but rather than annoyance or frustration at Christopher’s insistence, Eddie just looks pained. “Chris— “

“Buck’s our best friend,” Christopher looks like he would stamp his foot. “We can’t just leave him out. That’s not nice.”

It’s that last phrase,  _ that’s not nice,  _ that seems rather pointed and it gets Eddie’s attention. Eddie takes a deep breath and then nods, handing the stick to Buck.

“Yay!” Christopher cheers and then scoots over to take a seat and watch Buck take his turn. Buck turns to Eddie who was still standing there, watching him.

“Eddie, I…” He blinks a few times. “I don’t know what happened, but...but I’ll leave if you want me to.”

Eddie looks up at him slowly, and it’s then Buck can truly see the anguish Eddie had been trying to hide.

“No, don’t leave. Stay. Please.” And it doesn’t feel forced. It feels all too real, the barely concealed desperation in Eddie’s voice. 

“Okay…” Buck promises, knowing that despite how uncomfortable Eddie looked just a moment ago, it isn’t personal. It isn’t Buck’s fault, it is something else. Something else that is making Eddie unwilling to speak too much more on it just yet. “I’ll stay.”

Buck lines the stick up with the puck and shoots it far across the deck. It slides all the way off the board and Christopher throws his head back and laughs like it's the funniest thing he’s seen all day. 

Embarrassed, Buck rubs the back of his neck and turns around. Eddie is smiling slightly, like he was trying to hold it in, and Buck figures he doesn’t mind embarrassing himself if it means Eddie would smile.

It’s Eddie’s turn after Buck’s and then Christopher’s again, and they keep going until eventually Christopher wins. Eddie asks if he wants to play again and they do another two rounds, once with Eddie winning and another with Buck winning. Christopher offers Buck some of his muffin and Buck almost tells him no, but Eddie reassures him that if he doesn’t, Christopher is just going to leave it unfinished.

Buck suggests another round but Christopher says he doesn’t feel like it that time. He wants to go for a walk, or race. Buck glances at Eddie when Christopher mentions racing, but soon enough, Eddie has Christopher sturdy on his back, with his little arms around Eddie’s neck. Buck hooks Christopher’s crutches under his arm, and the three men are off.

They race down the second class deck, and then once they hit the third class barrier, Buck flings it open and takes his chance to move down first.

“Cheater!” Eddie cries out, but Christopher is laughing like a madman and he kicks Eddie’s side like he is trying to get a horse he’s riding to go faster. And Eddie does, he catches up with Buck quickly and soon enough they reach the finish line, the bow of the ship.

“Can I go up, dad? Can I?”

Buck smiles at that. He had felt the exact same urge when he’d first gotten on this ship. The need to stand up on the edges and hold his arms out and feel the wind between his fingers. He catches Eddie’s eye, and nods his head in the direction of the bow, urging him to try it out with Christopher.

“I don’t know, Chris...it’s not exactly safe.”

“I’ll stand behind you guys,” Buck interjects, suddenly getting an idea. “You hold onto Christopher while he stands in front, and I’ll hold onto both of you.”

“Yeah! That sounds awesome!” Christopher bounds over the bow and starts to climb by himself before Eddie quickly scoops him up and holds onto him while Christopher balances on the second bar.

Eddie looks back at Buck, worry weighing down the skin on his brow. “You won’t let go, right?”

“I won’t let go.”

Buck steps forward, coming up behind Eddie. Unsure how close he should get, Buck hesitates as he crowds closer into Eddie’s space. Christopher is laughing a joyous sound that finds its way past Eddie and up to Buck’s ears, making the two of them smile in turn. It’s that smile that bolsters Buck’s confidence to step even closer, his fingers resting on Eddie’s waist.

He leans forward so they both can hear. “Do you trust me?”

“We trust you,” Christopher answers for them both, but the slight nod Eddie gives him is what really solidifies it.

Buck leans forward and with one hand, he gets a solid hold on Christopher’s shoulder. Then he uses his other hand to move Eddie’s hands from around Christopher’s waist. Buck brings Eddie’s arms, now holding Christopher’s hands, out to the side, in a mimic of the same position of a bird spreading its wings that Buck himself had done on the first day on the ship. With Eddie holding Christopher’s hands, Buck then steps close enough so that he is pressing completely against Eddie’s back. He tucks his free arm all the way around Eddie and presses his hand into Christopher’s chest to make sure they were all completely secure.

“You too,” Buck nudges Eddie’s arm and whispers. The both of them are completely supported by Buck. Eddie should get a chance to feel the exhilaration too. Into Eddie’s ear, Buck softly whispers. “Go on.”

Eddie lets go of Christopher’s hands slowly, but then he has his arms spread out as wide as he can. Buck feels Eddie’s chest press further into his, and Buck can’t help but lean forward to watch Eddie’s face. His eyes are closed, the wind whistling past his cheeks that are a soft rose color against his tan skin. 

“It’s like flying,” Eddie whispers so softly it almost gets lost in the wind. His eyes are open now, looking out and marveling at the view before them. 

Christopher who had mostly been silent except for his occasional gasps of “wow!” and “look at that!” suddenly shouts: “I’m the king of the world!” in a voice so carefree and exalted that it makes Eddie burst out laughing.

“WOO HOO! Make way for the king of the world!” Buck shouts out to the waves and it makes the two in front of him laugh even harder. 

Eddie turns his head to look back at him again, this time his face impossibly close again, just like they had been last night. Eddie’s eyes travel the length of his face, but Buck can’t push forward. Eddie has to be the one to do this. He just has to. 

A slight stumble from Christopher pulls them out of the moment but Buck has his hand clamped down hard on the kid and he’s totally fine.

A courteous cough from behind them signals the end of their flying journey. Buck whips his head around and Eddie and Christopher come down from the edge. Buck hadn’t even noticed that the sun was starting to go down, he’d been so wrapped up in the two Diaz boys beside him.

“Hi, Carla!” Christopher calls out with a smile. “Buck and daddy were helping me fly! It’s so fun! You have to try it.”

Eddie’s previously at ease body stands straight up, rigid once more in the face of someone he was supposed to be saving face for.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Carla says, looking between Buck and Eddie (and Christopher) with a knowing smirk on her face. “It’s just almost time for Christopher to come back and get ready for dinner.” She adds slowly with a pointed look at Eddie. “Best I get him back before they notice he’s been gone too long.”

Eddie flinches.

“Aw, Carla, do I have to?”

Carla doesn’t answer, but instead looks at Eddie to make the final decision. Eddie bends down and gives Christopher a kiss on the cheek.

“You go on with Carla, okay?” he tells Christopher who pouts. Eddie stands, glances at Buck once more, before turning to speak to Carla. “I will not be joining my family for dinner this evening. I would greatly appreciate your discretion on my whereabouts this evening.”

Carla gives him a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.”

“I wanna stay with you,” Christopher whines.

Eddie smooths down the fly-away hairs on Christopher’s hair gently. “I’m gonna keep Buck company since he can’t come to dinner tonight.” He gives Chris a wink.

Both Christopher and Buck perk up at the same time. Buck marvels at Eddie. Is he really planning to stay longer with him tonight?

As Christopher walks back to Carla, she pats him on the shoulder. “You’ll see your daddy soon. Don’t worry, Eddie, I’ll watch over Christopher however long you like tonight.”

Christopher waves at Buck and Edde. “Bye daddy! Bye Buck! See you later!”

“Bye, buddy!” Buck waves him off. 

Carla gives Buck a wink as she passes by and Buck scrambles to make sure Eddie doesn’t see it. The man is looking away, but there’s the slightest of smirks on his face. Buck relaxes then, but his relaxation is short lived.

“Why are you really blowing off dinner?” he asks, genuinely having no idea at all why Eddie would want to do that.

“Because,” Eddie says, turning to him, leaning down and taking Buck’s hand. “I have a better idea.”

And Buck goes, knowing without a doubt that he’d follow Eddie anywhere.

*

**_6 hours and 40 minutes until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

Sneaking past the grand staircase to the B deck cabins is almost too easy with everyone else busy in the dining room. Buck doesn’t question at all where they are going, just follows along easily. 

Eddie knows that dinner would last at least another hour, maybe an hour and a half at most. And then the women would stay to chat and the men would retire to the smoking rooms for at least another hour or two after that. Shannon and his mother would be busy socializing and his father and Rupert would be busy gambling. With Christopher in Carla’s care, that leaves Eddie’s cabin empty.

When he drags Buck into his cabin, the man looks around with his jaw on the floor, completely gobsmacked. “Holy…”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “It’s not that great.”

Buck shakes his head with a laugh. “If this is not that great to you, I shudder to think what you consider grand.”

Eddie stops and looks around the room. “I...I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

Buck slides a hand up Eddie’s arm until it reaches the inside of his elbow.

“I know what you meant, Eddie. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Eddie groans, shaking his head. “No I just— I know that I’m lucky beyond all words to even have a single dime. I—” He runs a hand down his face before sitting down on the loveseat. “Having this money...it costs me  _ everything.” _

Buck moves forward, taking the seat next to him. His thigh presses into Eddie’s and the comfort that somehow seeps from him into Eddie’s skin is indescribable. 

“We have nothing.” He stops. “That is,  _ I  _ have nothing. My mother and father are bankrupt and the only thing that kept us afloat all this time was this marriage into the Kelley family. Their money is the only thing standing between us and the streets.”

This time Buck tries to take Eddie’s hand, and he lets him. He doesn’t say a word, just lets Eddie spill it all out.

“If I don’t comply with what Mr. Kelley expects of me—Fuck, what  _ everyone  _ expects of me—” He looks into Buck’s eyes, begging for him to understand. “There’s more for me to lose than just the stupid money.”

Buck searches his face. “Chris.”

Eddie sighs with relief. He gets it. Buck actually gets it. Eddie launches himself up off the couch and flies over to the safe, unlocking it and snatching the case with the diamond in it. He marches back into the sitting room and thrusts the box at Buck. The younger man takes it with cautious hands.

“This is what I sold myself off for,” Eddie tells him at last as Buck opens the box.

Buck barely stifles a gasp. The eyes bugging out of his head is enough to clue Eddie in that Buck is extremely uncomfortable holding something worth so much.

“Eddie…”

“Le Cœur de la Mer,” Eddie says. “The heart—”

“The Heart of the Ocean,” Buck says at the exact time. Buck stares at it, his eyes awash with a mixture of awe and something not short of horror. He quickly snaps the lid closed and hands the box back to Eddie. “Shit.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. The price of a new heir.”

Buck splutters for real now. “What, to replace Chris?”

He can’t even begin to explain how happy he feels to see Buck so indignant about it. Someone to be angry, and betrayed by this, just like him.

“This thing is worth less than pennies to me.” Eddie clenches the box tight in his grip. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on it.”

Buck looks up at him in such sorrow, Eddie almost regrets telling him all of this. It isn’t pity, never pity, Eddie is beginning to realize, from Buck. It is a desperate wish to help him, a fruitless wish, a regret that he had made all of the choices he made up until this point that led him to being a poor nomad with no way to break Eddie free of his chains.

Buck looks at him like he is a painting, the picture of pain trapped inside a canvas forever but with a smile drawn over his lips, so that no matter how he truly feels, everyone else would always look upon him as the wealthy socialist industrialist. 

No. When he dies, that lifeless drawing of a man in agony is not how he wants to be remembered.

“Buck, I want you to draw me.”

Buck blinks, surely not following at all how Eddie jumped from one tragic topic to this. “Uh—um, sure. Now?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, now.”

“O-Okay, um. I’ll go get my things and be right back.”

As Buck jumps up and flees and to go get his materials, Eddie thinks about how he wants to do this. He doesn’t want to wear his best suit, doesn’t want anything that will somehow indicate how much money he does—or doesn’t—have. 

He pulls out the couch father into the sitting room. There’s better lighting in here, he thinks. Better to capture—what? His smile? He doesn’t want to look dead like he does in all of his other pictures, but a smile feels disingenuous somehow.

He hears Buck come back in and directs him to sit before he dives back into his room to figure out quickly what he is going to wear. As he takes his jacket and shirt off, he catches a glimpse of that damned diamond, sitting open on the desk in his room, glittering sinisterly. 

Eddie hates this diamond. 

And yet…

Eddie turns back to look in the mirror at his bare chest. It hits him then. Why wear clothes at all? Buck’s speciality was bare portraits...why shouldn’t Eddie’s be the same?

With his pants off, completely bare, Eddie slips one of his robes on and then grabs the diamond out of the box, holding the thing in his hand.

How could something so small terrify him so much?

He squeezes the thing in his hand and then takes a deep breath as he goes over to the door of the sitting room. He watches Buck at his little makeshift station. He has sharpened his pencils and has his book of other drawings set up in front of him, open to a blank page. He notices Eddie standing there and stops.

The blush of his cheeks trails all the way down his neck to his chest. He chuckles breathlessly.

“Is this alright?” Eddie asks. “If you draw me like you draw your others?”

_ Your other lovers,  _ he doesn’t voice out loud.

Buck visibly swallows, his hands bouncing on his knees. “Yeah. I mean—Yes, totally. That’s...okay.”

Eddie is unable to hide the amusement on his face as he walks over, still holding the robe closed over his body. 

“Where do you want me?”

“The bed,” Buck blurts, then with an awkward squawk: “The couch!”

Laughter bursts forth like a great wave, settling about the room with a hum of nervous energy. Eddie reaches for the folds of his robe and then looks back up into Buck’s eyes as he slowly takes it off. Oddly enough, it’s not the cool air that sends a shiver down his spine but rather the look in Buck’s eyes.

Buck sucks in a small gasp of air as he takes in Eddie’s form. He tries to hide how much he wants to look, Eddie can tell by the way he keeps trying to glance away but finds his eyes back on Eddie’s skin the next. And then Buck’s eyes land on the diamond around his neck.

“Oh,” he breathes out in a rush. “Eddie…”

“Is this okay?” Eddie asks as he finally moves to take a seat on the couch. “The necklace?”

“Definitely okay,” Buck reassures him. “It, uh, it looks a lot better on you than it did in the box.” 

Eddie chances a touch to the necklace hanging heavily against his chest. The diamond necklace that he is supposed to give Shannon as a token of his love to celebrate their ten year anniversary. How much of his life had he wasted forcing himself to be okay? How much time had he spent staring at this god forsaken necklace and wishing that he could fling it off the side of the ship and watch it sink to the bottom of the sea.

If this is to be the portrait Eddie remembers for the rest of his life, he wants to look back on it when he is ninety and remember that he hadn’t let a stupid rock get the better of him.

He comes out of his thoughts and looks up at Buck. “Should I just lean back like this?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect. Oh wait, move your hips a little bit forward—” Buck quickly helps to direct Eddie to how he should pose. In the end, Eddie ends up laying down on his side, with his right arm resting gently on the pillow behind his head and his left arm tucked in front of him, his fingers framing his face. His body laid parallel to Buck, leaving nothing out. Buck keeps looking at him and then back at his blank piece of paper, like he was trying to conserve Eddie’s modesty.

“You know,” Eddie drawls, putting a finger between his lips. “I don’t think you’ll be able to draw me if you don’t properly look at me.”

Buck looks up then, and this time, he doesn’t shy away from gazing long and heavy up and down the length of Eddie’s body. He picks up a charcoal pencil and adjusts the paper underneath it.

“Just hold still,” Buck whispers. And then he begins.

He doesn’t hold back. Buck’s eyes trail over Eddie’s frame, lingering on Eddie’s face first. Eddie watches Buck just as closely as he watches him. Somehow Eddie can feel Buck’s fingertips from all the way over there. Like invisible hands, roaming over his skin, down his chest to his stomach, and then farther to his hips and dipping lower where Buck’s eyes linger for longer than usual.

Eddie tries to keep his breathing steady, to make normal inhalations instead of the shorter gasping breaths that fight to escape his throat. He watches Buck’s fingers rub into the charcoal lines and wishes for nothing more for Buck’s fingers to be on his skin instead of the paper. 

“Relax,” Buck whispers but it doesn’t help. Eddie feels on edge, but not in the uncomfortable way he’d been feeling on edge for the last decade. It is an excited edge, like he is standing at the precipice of something life-altering. He just has to make the choice to jump. Buck’s voice, deep and low, results in goosebumps erupting all over Eddie’s skin. His nipples begin to harden and the muscles of his abs tighten, and he hopes to God that nothing else hardens—at least, not yet. 

Buck stares at the paper like it’s the love of his life. There’s a softness to his eyes as he inspects his work after they sit there for who knows how long. But then he looks up from his drawing and the look in his eyes doesn’t change. There’s a fire burning there, one that hadn’t been there before. Or rather, a fire that has been there the whole time but Buck is only now allowing Eddie to see.

“It’s finished,” Buck tells him, a bit breathlessly. 

Buck steals more glances at Eddie’s body as he slowly stands. Without even bothering to put his robe back on, steps up forward and asks, “Can I see?”

Buck gulps nervously, but he hands Eddie the paper. 

He furrows his brow. Something is off. There is no way that Eddie really looks like this. Looking at this drawing is like looking at a stranger. He glances back up at Buck who is looking at him with such hope in his eyes.

It hits Eddie then. He looks back down at the drawing. 

No, he isn’t looking at a stranger. 

He is seeing himself, wholly and truly, for the first time ever. 

“Buck...this is…” Eddie’s at a loss for words. How is he supposed to explain to Buck that this drawing is the first time Eddie has ever seen a reflection of himself that encapsulates who he really is and not just the mask he wears.

This is how Eddie looks in Buck’s eyes. 

Buck rubs his neck, wetting his lips. “I know. It’s just a rough sketch.”

“This is worth more to me than you could ever know,” Eddie interrupts him, looking back down at the drawing just to be sure that it is still there. That Eddie hadn’t disappeared in the couple of seconds he looked away from it. 

It is worth it to find the words to explain his feelings to Buck to get the look on his face back in return. Eddie hands back the drawing with only a tad bit of reluctance, and Buck puts it inside the leather bound journal with his other drawings in it. Eddie unclasps the necklace and puts it back inside the box. 

“Can you put these back in the safe while I get dressed?” Eddie asks, turning around to put his robe back on.

“Yeah, sure,” Buck is all too quick to escape the sitting room to stash away everything for the moment. 

Eddie puts on some clothes, a comfortable white button down and his black pants and suspenders. He doesn’t bother with a jacket. He comes out of the room and finds Buck sitting down with his hands in his lap on the couch that Eddie had previously been occupying. He had put the rest of the furniture they had moved back into place and the sitting room looked exactly the same as it had before they had turned it into their own personal studio. A pity.

Eddie takes a seat next to Buck.

“Thank you,” he says, and then holds out his hand. Buck reaches his hand out and Eddie drops a coin into his palm. “For your hard work.”

“I don’t want money,” Buck tells him. “You know that, Eddie.”

He does know that.

“I know that,” Eddie says, letting himself lean father into Buck’s space, damning any sort of modesty as they press their sides together, sides, arms and legs touching from top to bottom. Buck takes the coin and lays it back on the table beside the couch. “I know what you want.”

“You do?” Buck breathes so softly he could almost be holding his breath.

Eddie nods. Then, sarcastically: “A handsome model that knows how to keep still for hours.”

Buck snorts. He ducks his head. “Nah. No, Eddie, you’re...you’re so much more than that.” His fingers slide over the skin of Eddie’s wrist, tracing the blue veins that branch out.

“Am I…?” Eddie says slowly, turning his head so that he could settle in close to Buck, taking in his face, his eyes...his lips.

Buck stops breathing altogether.

“What are you doing?” he asks in a dead whisper, but he doesn’t pull back. If anything he leans impossibly closer.

Eddie’s eyes flutter, capturing the moment in his mind and carving the vision before him inside the walls of his soul for the rest of time. 

“Seizing an opportunity.”

Their lips meet. Eddie tilts his head so that Buck could slide his lips firmly over his. His mouth is soft and sweet, but he opens up beautifully as Eddie pushes forward. He reaches forward, touching Buck’s thigh as Buck’s hand comes up to cradle Eddie’s neck. Eyes closed, Eddie feels like his whole world has tilted off its axis, but he’s not sure if perhaps that was just the waves rocking the boat underneath him. He couldn’t care less as Buck makes a choked moaning sound under his breath and Eddie swallows it whole like he was starving. 

Fingers pull at the little hairs at the bottom of his neck, drawing Eddie in deeper, as Buck’s tongue flicks at the tip of his. Something in Eddie’s core implodes, the heat travelling from his lips, down to his neck and chest, following the path of Buck’s fingers, until it lands squarely in his groin and Eddie finds himself leaning farther and farther onto Buck, desperate to let Buck take him into his mouth and devour him whole.

Eddie has never felt this out of control in his life. He fucking loves it.

He’s almost got a leg up and over Buck’s lap, begging desperately for more of Buck’s equally hungry lips.

A loud knock sounds at the door to the cabin.

*

Buck is more than content to sit there, hands on Eddie’s thighs, kissing Eddie’s mouth like his life depends on it, till the end of his days. 

He almost whines when Eddie pulls back sharply at the heavy knock on the door. Buck’s heart drops to his stomach, and if the shock on Eddie’s face was any indicator, he was too. 

Faster than a blink of an eye, Eddie snatches his hand and pulls him out of the living room into the bedroom. Just then, whoever is at the door, finally unlocks it. From the corner Buck is hiding in, he can’t see who it is, but he figures if it is one of the people who live in these cabins, they wouldn’t have cared enough to knock first. They would’ve just barged in.

Which left the staff traveling with them. Perhaps Carla and Christopher?

Eddie whips around and pulls him out of the bedroom through the side room attached to it. It’s then Buck realizes, whoever it is, it is not Carla searching for them. Buck shoves the anxiety down deep into his body and quickly follows alongside Eddie as the man expertly weaves and dodges through the rooms, avoiding their pursuer. 

Whoever it is had stalked through all of the rooms, and when the coast is clear, Eddie lunges for the front door and the two of them make their escape.

Eddie bursts out a relieved gasp once they make it out. “God—She—Lovejoy—”

“Was that who was following us?” Buck asks. Just then, the man who Buck recognizes as the Kelley family bodyguard sticks his head out of the cabin and spots the two of them. 

“Shit!” Eddie exclaims and grabs Buck’s hand again. This time, however, his fingers lace through Buck’s without an ounce of hesitancy.

“Run!” Buck shouts and the two of them are off in a flash, Lovejoy hot on their heels. Buck’s heart beats hard and loud, the vein on his neck throbbing as they run out of the hall and toward the grand staircase. Buck nearly barrels into a steward with a cart but he manages to jump out of the way and Eddie is laughing with him so nothing could stop the soaring feeling in Buck’s soul.

They come back together in an instant, hands seeking each other out like magnets as they fly down the stairs. Buck chances a glance up and sees Lovejoy’s face hovering over the bannister from at least two stories up. He disappears the instant after.

“He’s probably gone to the elevator!” Eddie pants. “We gotta—we gotta go somewhere he can’t find us.” 

Down and down the spiral stairs they go. They stop off on E-Deck, probably the lowest passengers could go and run until they hit the rooms marked “staff only” hoping that Lovejoy wouldn’t think to follow them through where the waiters and cooks hold up and store their food.

Eddie leans back against the wall. “Did we lose him?”

Buck, hunches over on his knees, catching his breath, looks up through the circular window. “I think so?”

Eddie stands up straighter and comes closer to him. He’s nearly chest to chest, looking up into his face. “Good.” 

He starts to lean up—

They both notice Lovejoy barrelling down the stairs at the same moment, and the older man catches sight of them in an instant.

“Oh fu—”

Their fingers interweave again, and the chase continues. Buck searches frantically for somewhere else they can escape to—there are only so many places on a ship to hide!—and Eddie skids to a halt, hauling them back through a door that hadn’t been marked as any room in particular. 

The noise from inside is loud and overbearing and Buck can’t hear anything Eddie is saying, but Eddie is shouting and pointing towards a hole in the ground, with a ladder going down. It probably leads to the boiler rooms and whatever else they keep deep below the ship. No way that this crazy cop fella would look for them there, right?

Buck goes first, nearly sliding down the ladder with Eddie following quickly behind him.

At the bottom of the stairs they land feet first amongst the engineers working double time hauling coal into the boilers. Their faces are darkened with soot, making them nearly unrecognizable, and the two of them stand out like beacons. Especially Eddie with his silken dress shirt a fine white that makes him look like a star among the black night.

“Oi! You two can’t be down here!” a man calls out.

No words are needed between them then. It is a routine now, to seek each other out, and to run. They duck and dodge through the endless chambers of soot-covered men, the steam rising and suffocating, but somehow Buck’s head has never been clearer.

They make it past the workers and cut through an empty area in the boiler room. Eddie snatches his arm to stop him from running forward again and Buck thinks for a moment that maybe Lovejoy has caught up to them and they have to make an about face and run in the other direction but instead, Eddie hauls him back in until they’re chest to chest.

Eddie steals the breath from Buck’s lungs as his hand glides up to Buck’s neck and pulls him down into a kiss. Eddie walks him back into the wall until he has Buck pushed against it and Buck melts into him. Steam rises over their heads, and they could be caught at any moment, but Buck doesn’t care. Eddie’s fingers are on his pulse, counting the skipping beats of his heart, and Eddie’s hips are under his hands. 

Buck had worried, for a just moment back in Eddie’s cabin that perhaps Eddie hadn’t meant anything by the molten kiss they had shared. That maybe Buck wants more out of it than Eddie does. It nagged in the back of his head, even throughout their running and chasing. The urge to run is still there, to run away from that evil thought that makes him terrified that Eddie is going to leave him behind the second he becomes an inconvenience in his life. 

Hell, Buck is already just that. 

This is Eddie’s choice, he thinks to himself. He has to believe that. Eddie has him held softly in his arms right now, and he is choosing Buck. He’s kissing Buck like he never wants to let go.

Buck hopes he never, ever lets go.

Eddie pulls back slowly, eyes still closed, and the little smile on his lips ignites Buck’s heart like a volcano. Buck can’t help it, and kisses Eddie again, one soft peck that has Eddie’s breath catching and his body leaning in even closer, closer, closer. Buck will never forget that sound, even if he should die tomorrow, he will carry that soft moan into the next life and beyond.

Eddie’s smile is warm, even as it’s shadowed in the low light of the fires from the boilers. He bites his lip, grasping Buck’s hand softly again before turning to lead him away from the boiler room. “Come on.”

They walk leisurely, certain that Lovejoy hasn’t followed them down this time. Buck can’t restrain himself from staring at Eddie the whole time, and the man beneath his gaze just squeezes his hand tightly. Soon they come upon what looks like a storage room. There are crates filled to the brim with other luggage making its way to America aboard the ship.

Eddie’s eyes lock on the only car in the storage room. “Come with me.” He pulls Buck along with him until they reach the car and Eddie opens the backseat door for him, stepping aside and sweeping low into a bow like Buck is the gentleman waiting to enter the carriage.

Buck laughs at the reversal. He wonders if Eddie will offer his hand to help him in as well. 

He doesn’t, but that’s alright, because he follows shortly after and the two of them settle into the backseat together. Buck wraps his arm around Eddie's waist and leans into his side, kissing his cheek. Eddie’s face turns red, like he hadn’t just shoved Buck up against a wall and had his way with him not even ten minutes ago. 

If Eddie is content to just look at him, then Buck is as well.

“Where did you come from?” Eddie breathes, bringing a hand up to trace the skin of Buck’s face, along his cheeks, his chin. The soft pads of his thumbs trace up over his cheekbones to his eyes, brushing the hairs of his eyelashes. Eddie brushes his birthmark particularly softly, and then leans forward, pressing a kiss to it equally as gentle.

Buck blinks back the sudden wetness that had sprung to his eyes.

No one has ever looked at him like this before. He has had people lust over him—women and men who longed to have his body, but didn’t care for his mind, or his heart. He had come to know many artists in his travels, had people call him handsome, exquisitely so and beg to paint him. Buck has never been able to sit still long enough to let anyone really  _ look  _ at him the way Eddie is now. 

Like he sees everything Buck is, and everything he could be. Everything they could be together.

Eddie’s thumb makes its way to Buck’s lips, smoothing over them so lightly Buck might’ve believed Eddie isn’t even touching him, if it hadn’t been for the heat that radiated from Eddie’s skin. Buck’s lips part and he shivers.

His grip on Eddie’s hip tightens but he doesn’t move forward. Can’t. He’s frozen like this, even in the overbearing heat of the boiler room wafting in. He sits there waiting for something, he doesn't know what. Perhaps for Eddie to thaw him out.

“Touch me,” Eddie whispers, bringing Buck’s hand up to touch his neck. Buck leans forward, letting his fingers explore on their own, stroking Eddie’s cheek before sliding down to land over Eddie’s heart.

“Why is your heart beating so fast?”

Eddie gives a light snort, his nose wrinkling like Buck had seen Christopher doing. “You can’t tell?”

The canines in his mouth lifted over his lips, sharp yet inviting. Buck wonders how they would feel scraping against his skin, against his pulse. Zings of pleasure trail up Buck’s chest. “What do you want, Eddie?”

Eddie stares at him only for a moment more, before he says, “You.”

And that’s all Buck needs. He pushes forward at the same moment that Eddie does and Eddie throws an arm around his neck as their lips meet again. Both of Buck’s arms wrap around Eddie’s waist now, crushing him tightly to his chest, wanting him closer than ever before. Buck drinks it all in, the touch of Eddie’s fingers as he pushes Buck’s shirt up and out of his trousers. His warm fingers as they skate underneath, trailing up his chest. It tickles but Eddie swallows his laughter with his lips. Buck undos the buttons on Eddie’s dress shirt one by one, then using both hands he slips the sleeves and his suspenders off Eddie’s shoulders.

Soon enough they’re both without shirts and Buck can’t breathe with the heat of Eddie’s body on his. Eddie pulls Buck on top of him, and Buck lets his weight tip fully over Eddie. Fingertips trail up the curve of his bare back and his cock ignites fully to life. Eddie grinds his hips up into Buck’s and a moan rips from Buck’s throat. Eddie’s hands slide into the back of Buck’s pants, over his ass and Buck’s head spins with the heat of their laps grinding together. Buck pulls back to unbutton Eddie’s pants and Eddie’s hands fall out of Buck’s pants to rest by his side. Buck looks down at the picture of beauty underneath him. 

He abandons his plan to get Eddie out of his pants in favor of getting his lips on Eddie’s skin, kissing his chest right in the center between his nipples, right where his heart would be. Eddie shivers and gives a soft laugh and Buck is encouraged to continue.

His tongue trails over Eddie’s chest, licking over one nipple, scraping the barest of teeth against it. Eddie’s groans fill his ears, fill the car with steam, and Buck wants to hear more, more,  _ more.  _

Eddie shoves his own pants and undergarments down, and makes quick work of getting Buck rid of his own pants. Eddie pulls Buck against him fully, hungrily attaching his lips back to Buck’s. Buck runs a hand down Eddie’s hips, squeezing the side of his ass, before sliding his hand down Eddie’s leg. When he reaches the curve of his knee, he hikes Eddie’s leg over his waist, resulting in the most glorious moan from Eddie. “God,  _ yes,  _ Buck—”

Oh Lord in Heaven above. Buck could come just from the sound of his name on Eddie’s tongue like that.

Eddie’s hands are far from still, running up and down over all of Buck’s body. Neither of them can seem to separate their lips from each other. Buck’s hand sneaks in between them, grabbing Eddie’s cock and stroking it gently. Eddie’s hand flies up to Buck’s, and he pushes their cocks together before fitting his hand over Buck’s fist. They both fuck up into the tight heat their fists were creating in the center of their bodies.

“Eddie…” Buck whines out breathlessly. “Eddie...Eddie... _ uhng...Eddie…” _

Eddie rises partially up, giving him a better angle to thrust his hips forward into Buck’s fist. He throws his hand out for purchase, one hand slapping against the fogged up glass and the other hand grasping against the handle of the door.

“Buck—Buck, yes! I’m—please,  _ please _ …”

“I got you,” Buck whispers into Eddie’s ear. “Let go, Eddie.”

Eddie throws his head back and it’s the sight of Eddie’s blissed out face, his mouth wide open in a silent scream that has Buck spilling all over his fingers. 

The come down leaves Buck shaking, barely able to move as he lays his head against Eddie’s chest. It’s all he can do to hold onto Eddie, kissing his chest over and over, moving up until he can press dozens of soft kisses against his collarbone and shoulders. He mouths at Eddie’s neck and up and over his chin. It’s only once he’s reached his mouth again that he catches the look in Eddie’s eyes. 

It is this look that Buck will have stuck in his mind for all of the time he has left. It is that look of absolute and unlimited love that Eddie is giving him that would be what he remembers, what he clings to, in his last dying moments.

  
  


*

**_2 hours, 42 minutes and 59 seconds until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

If it hadn’t been for the two attendants and their flashlights poking about the storage room, Eddie doesn’t think he ever would’ve left the enclosure of the car and Buck’s embrace. It is only through necessity they pull their bodies away from each other and put their clothes back on. Quietly they sneak back out of the boiler room and up to E deck. Once they are able to make it onto the third class level, they let themselves be. Stop looking over their shoulder for someone chasing them.

Eddie is content, walking hand in hand with Buck like this. Soon enough they make it outside onto the front deck facing the bow of the ship.

The night air is frigid and they don’t move any closer to the side of the deck where the water rushes up and makes the air colder. 

They stand together, Buck’s arm wrapped around Eddie’s waist, resting there with ease. Eddie looks out into the endless night in front of them. In only about three days time, they would land in New York. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to picture it, even though it has been on his mind non-stop since he first set foot on this wretched boat. He’s done nothing but think about his life and how it would be forever changed by the time he makes it back to America. 

Now the only thing that fills his head is the taste of Buck’s lips, and the feel of his warm hand in his, and how he looks at Eddie like he would never love another. How he smiles at Christopher like the boy he had only just met means the world to him. 

How could a man like Buck, someone who loves and cares so deeply, have chosen him and Christopher? Eddie doesn’t feel worthy of being the one Buck thrust all of his light upon. How could he? He hasn’t said a word to indicate to Buck that anything would change once they step off the boat. 

Is it because Eddie has resigned himself to his fate? Is he willing to just stand there and let his family steam roll right over him? Let them hurt Christopher like they’d been hurting Eddie?

No. This is the final straw. Eddie has made his decision.

Eddie turns to Buck, taking both of his hands in his and looking up into his face. Buck, sensing the seriousness in Eddie’s posture, seems to be preparing himself for something. He has steeled his shoulders, set his mouth into a hard line, as if trying to stop any emotion from escaping. But he is failing. Eddie could see it clear on Buck’s face. The man thinks this is the end. That Eddie is preparing to tell him that he can never see him again, and that once the fairytale boat ride is over, that they will never see each other again. 

Buck is terrified, and he is trying not to show it.

Eddie knows then that he will never love another like he loves Buck in this moment.

“When the ship docks, I’m going with you.”

He’s said it. Finally. It’s out there and he won’t change his mind.

The facade Buck has been trying to create immediately cracks and he splutters. “You—You want to—what about Chris?”

“Chris will come with us,” Eddie tells him. He knows this is best. Christopher will never have a real life if he is stuck with Shannon and Eddie’s parents. He will never be able to grow and become his own person, chase his own dreams. He will forever be stunted, by a well-meaning, but ultimately poisonous family. Rupert wants another heir? He and Shannon will have to find someone else to give that to them. It isn’t going to be Eddie, and he sure as hell is not about to let them toss Christopher aside like he is nothing. Christopher is his son, and Eddie may not be the father that Christopher deserves, but he will sooner die than let his son grow up feeling like he is unwanted. Eddie wants him, Eddie loves him more dearly than life itself. This is the right decision.

Buck cups the sides of his face in between his palms. There’s the sheen of tears shining in his eyes. He leans down and rests his forehead against Eddie’s. “Eddie, you—you have no idea what you just  _ saying  _ these words means to me, but—”

But?

“But nothing, Buck,” Eddie holds onto Buck’s hands still clutching at his face. “Chris—They don’t want him! They don’t think he’s worthy of their family, their money? Then fine. I will take my son and they can find someone else to pay to give Shannon a healthy heir. I don’t want that. I never  _ ever  _ wanted that, can’t you see that, Buck?”

He wants his son, his Christopher, and he wants Buck.

“I have nothing to offer you,” Buck croaks, shutting his eyes tight, his Adam's apple bobbing like he is trying to swallow back the tears.

Eddie shakes his head. “...And we have nothing to offer you.”

Buck’s eyes fly open. “Are you kidding me? You and Chris...you’re everything...you’re  _ everything  _ I always wanted.”

If Eddie’s heart could soar any higher he thinks he could make it to the stars in a single second alone.

“Then we’ll figure it out.” He kisses Buck firmly, crushing his body tightly to the only life raft that had drifted into his life just when he needed it most. “Just the three of us. We’ll make a life for ourselves. You said it yourself, we’ll work to make sure he has a roof over his head. We’ll starve before he goes hungry. We’ll give him the love and the life he deserves. Chris will love it. He’s always wanted a life of adventure.”

Buck laughs wetly. “He’s just like you.” But then his face darkens. “His mom...won’t he miss his mom?”

Eddie sobers, just slightly. “Yes…” he answers honestly. “Yes, I think he will. But...I dread to think what would happen to him if he had to live the rest of his life under Shannon’s shadow, under my parents. A life of endless coddling, a life of never feeling worthy, never feeling you’re good enough? You and I, we know how that feels. I know you don’t want that for Chris any more than I do. This is better for him. This is giving him a better life.”

Buck searches his face, as if looking for even a hint of doubt. When he doesn’t find any, he shuts his eyes and then buries his face in Eddie’s neck.

“I’ll only do this if you truly think it’s best for you and Christopher,” Buck murmurs into his pulse. “I want this so badly—” his voice cracks.  _ “So  _ badly, Eddie. But only if you and Christopher want it too.”

Eddie reaches down, pulling Buck’s head up so that they’re face to face again. Buck’s eyes shimmer with the night stars. 

Eddie’s never been more certain. “I do.”

Buck crushes his mouth to Eddie’s, sweeping forward so suddenly that Eddie almost slips, but Buck catches him. Eddie wraps his arms around Buck’s neck and licks into Buck’s mouth, savoring the taste of him. Of freedom. It’s so close,  _ so close.  _

_ Finally. _

He squeezes Buck’s body tighter. A sob nearly leaves his lips, but it gets caught in his throat. Buck pulls back for a split second to breath and then tilts his head and captures Eddie’s mouth again. Eddie opens his mouth so Buck can go deeper, and Buck answers in turn, his hands caressing his body, his hair, his face. 

“I love you,” Buck whispers against his lips.

Eddie kisses him hard. “I—”

The two of them are nearly knocked off their feet with a large lurch. The boat quakes hard and the two of them whirl around to see the side of the shipping skidding against the side of a colossal wall of ice.

Sharp chunks scrape off and crash onto the deck, splattering into smaller pieces that skid towards them.

“Whoa!” Buck and Eddie jump back at the same time, both of them throwing their arms out in front of the other.

Eddie breaths hard. “‘Was that…?”

Buck looks at him, a look of unease that raises the alarm bells in Eddie’s head.

“An iceberg…” Buck’s voice trembles. “We hit an iceberg.”


	3. Chapter 3

“That cannot be good,” Eddie huffs as the two of them march across the front deck up the stairs towards the crew bridge and back to B-deck. He needs to get back to his cabin as soon as possible.

“That didn’t feel like a superficial blow,” Buck babbles. “A ship this size, no way it could withstand a hit that hard. If it broke through the outer walls, there’s likely already flooding in the boiler rooms. And with the number of lifeboats...”

Eddie starts to zone out. The boiler rooms, where they were not even fifteen minutes ago? Eddie can barely breathe. If they had lingered there any longer…

A swarm of officers rushes past them, looking over blueprints and talking amongst themselves in harsh and not at all hushed tones. They aren't paying attention to the other guests in the area, that much is for certain, for Eddie and Buck have to swerve to get out of their way. 

Eddie’s ears catch on the captain, Edward Smith, and another officer mentioning the boiler rooms. “Boiler rooms 5 and 6 are filled as are two out of three holds. The third one is filling as we speak. We have to stop the flooding before it passes the fourth compartment or there’s no stopping…”

The crew disappears around the corner and Buck looks at Eddie hard.

“This ship is going down,” Buck whispers. 

A horn blows and Eddie is startled out of his frozen shock. He snatches Buck’s hand and the two of them rush off towards Eddie’s cabins. They have to get there as fast as they can, have to warn his family and get Christopher up to a lifeboat as soon as possible.

As luck would have it, everyone is gathered in Eddie’s cabin.

Mr. Lovejoy is standing out front, and he sneers at the two of them as they enter. He follows them into the room, close at Buck’s side.

“Finally!” Shannon throws her hands up, the glare on her face sharper than a knife.

“Eddie, where have you been?” His mother nearly shrieks. “We’ve been worried sick—”

“There’s no time for that now,” Eddie interrupts, not even caring about their petty squabbles. He doesn’t care what any of them think now. “Listen to me, the ship has hit an iceberg and—”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Rupert stands up. “Officer, search that man!”

“What?” Buck jerks back, but Eddie doesn’t let go of his hand. Let his whole family see, he is done pretending to be something he isn’t. 

“Dad,” Eddie turns to Ramon. “What’s going on—?”

“What’s going on is I have been robbed!” Rupert shouts. He shoves the officer forward and the two of them rush to take hold of Buck’s arms. Buck puts his hands up as one of them yanks his jacket off and the other man pats him down.

“This is insane,” Eddie grits out harshly. “We don’t have time for this! Where is Christopher?”

“He is asleep in his bed,” Shannon steps forward. “And that is where he will stay. I will not have him witnessing this disgraceful behavior from his father.”

Eddie ignores them all completely and storms into Christopher’s room. “Chris. Chris, buddy, I need you to get up for me, okay?” He tries to wake his son up as gently as best as he could, but at the same time he is trying really hard not to freak out. That won’t help right now. He has to turn off his emotions and get his son the hell off this ship.

He pounds on Carla’s door. “Carla? Can you please get Chris ready to go up on deck?”

“Eddie!” he hears Buck shout from the living room. He rushes back out to find Buck in handcuffs. “Eddie, I didn’t do it!”

The officer holds up the Heart of the Ocean in his hands. “This was found in his pocket, sir.”

Eddie stares at the jewel dangling in the man’s hand. Rupert snatches it and puts it in his own pocket.

“I knew it had to be him,” Shannon spits with disgust. “He brought the thief into our rooms.”

“I didn’t—” Eddie swallows, looking back and forth between Shannon and Buck. “I never...left him alone.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Ramon groans and pinches his forehead in disappointment.

“Eddie, you know me!” Buck exclaims. “You know I didn’t do this—”

“And a stolen jacket,” the officer interjects, holding out the jacket inside out, with a name that was clearly not Buck’s sewn into it.

“I was just borrowing it because you hounds wouldn’t let me past the doors—”

“As they should,” Helena snaps. “Officers, please get this man out of our room.”

“Wait, Eddie—”

“Daddy…?” Christopher walks out on his crutches, Carla not far behind. He’s dressed in his long pants and a light overcoat. He realizes too late that he hadn’t told Carla to dress him warmly, but there is no time to broach the issue. “What’s going on?” Christopher spots Buck and smiles tiredly. “Hi, Buck! What are you doing here?”

“Chris—” 

“I’ve had enough of this,” Shannon strides forward. “Take him away and lock him up good. If I find he’s come anywhere near my husband and son again, I swear to Heaven Almighty.”

Eddie can’t help but stand there numbly, even as Christopher comes to him and continues asking what’s going on.

“Eddie, you gotta believe me! Eddie—!” The officers drag Buck out of their cabin, struggling all the way. 

Eddie nearly takes a step after Buck but Christopher nudges him to be picked up and in that moment of distraction they’ve hauled Buck out into the hall and away. A distant shout of “Eddie!” makes him flinch.

Christopher takes his hand and Eddie finally turns to him. “Daddy, is Buck okay?”

A sharp knock on their door and another officer bursts in, breaking through the dense atmosphere. He tells them all to quickly get their life belts on and make their way up to the top deck. As the officer runs to the closet housing the life belts and then begins handing them out, Shannon strides over to Eddie. 

She slaps him hard across the face.

His head flies back and Christopher cries out in panic.

Helena quickly scoops Christopher up and she and Ramon leave the room, leaving Eddie alone with Shannon and Rupert. Shannon’s face is steaming but she doesn’t say anything further, instead snatching her life belt and following the others out the door.

Rupert lingers, stalking right up to Eddie’s face. “Let this be a warning of what happens when I am crossed. Do not let it happen again.” 

And with that, he leaves Eddie alone in the room. 

Another steward flies by, sees Eddie standing there staring at nothing, and yells at him to go up to the deck. It’s only then that Eddie can bring himself to move. He runs up the stairs and out onto the deck.

Shannon and his parents are standing among the crowd of first class passengers, all groaning and complaining as the officers surrounding them are frantically trying to ready the lifeboats. Eddie looks over their heads to bow, noticeably low in the water.

Christopher, upon noticing Eddie, kicks and squirms out of Helena’s arms, calling for Eddie. He moves forward, quickly grabbing a hold of his boy and holding him tightly.

“It’s okay, Chris. You’re gonna be okay,” he tries to calm his boy who had been crying loudly until Eddie had reunited with them. He moves closer to his family who are all congregating around the officers. 

“Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?” he hears his mother ask and Eddie turns his gaze on her. The disgust that fills him could overwhelm even the infinite sea that is quickly swallowing them whole. 

To his right, Rupert crowds into an officer’s space. “My good sir, I should expect that there should be some room on one of these fine boats once the first class woman and children are aboard. Yes?” He slips the man a thick wad of cash. “That’s a good fellow.” The man barely even blinks, accepting it without a second thought.

Eddie’s stomach dissolves into acid.

“I need more women and children!” Another officer is shouting and now Eddie understands why Christopher was crying so hard. 

“I don’t wanna go!” he screams, clutching onto Eddie so hard he’s nearly choking him.

Eddie kisses his cheek. “Christopher, mijo, you have to go with grandma and mommy, okay? Okay, the daddies are getting on to another boat. We’ll all be together soon.”

Christopher cries and cries, and Rupert tuts. “Honestly, can’t the help dress a child properly?” Rupert takes off his overcoat and draps it over Christopher.

“Honey,” Helena tries to take Christopher again. “It’s alright. Come with me.”

_ “No!”  _ Christopher shouts. “I wanna go with daddy!”

“Eddie, we have to go,” Shannon hisses. “Give him to me.” She steps forward and takes Christopher from Eddie’s arms. Christopher refuses to let go of him, clinging onto his clothes and Eddie nearly loses it then when he has to pry Christopher’s arms off from around his neck.

“You’ll be okay, Chris, just go with mommy. I’ll be okay too. You’ll see. I love you.”

But he doesn’t believe it. There aren’t enough lifeboats on the ship for everyone, just short of half. Even if they manage to fill all of the women and children into boats, there isn't enough room for the rest of the passengers.

Eddie isn’t getting off this ship. He stares at his crying child in horror as the officers swarm around them, escorting Shannon, Helena and Christopher on board. Ramon and Rupert stand back, though they aren’t panicked. They stand with the air of men who know their money will ultimately be what keeps them alive.

Christopher’s wails are drowned out by the exploding of the distress rockets. Eddie is shoved and jostled by more first class passengers and a handful of second class women and children being escorted onto the ship. 

Eddie can do nothing but stare at his son as the workmen begin to lower the boat. His hands are shaking but he clasps them together because Christopher can’t see him looking as afraid as he feels. Christopher must live, that is the sole thought in his head at this moment. If Eddie can’t make it off the boat, then Christopher must. 

But his heart is steadily breaking as he watches Shannon and his mother trying to calm a still screaming Christopher. Christopher, calling for his daddy, with a voice so broken Eddie could barely stand to hear it. He can’t—he can’t—

He takes one last look at Christopher, one last look at his son, knowing it just might be the very last time.

_ I will fight to come home to you, Chris. We will see each other again, somehow. Someday. _

Unable to bear looking at the lifeboat anymore, Eddie turns away, and starts to walk off. There isn’t anything more he can do for Chris, but there is someone else who needs him right now. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid to let them drag Buck off. 

His father grabs hold of Eddie’s arm and moves him farther aside. “Come along. We will wait an appropriate amount of time and then an officer will see us seated on a ship on the portside.”

Eddie yanks his arm out of his father’s grasp. “There aren’t enough lifeboats on this ship. Not by half and you’re acting like our lives are guaranteed.”

A dark chuckle escapes Rupert on his father’s right. “Our lives  _ are  _ guaranteed, Edmund. The deserving lives.”

Eddie stares into the hatred within Rupert's eyes. The truth for which he had known since the moment he met this creature finally cements. Rupert does not care about anything or anyone other than his money and those who can make sure it stays in his family.

He does not care for Eddie, or for Christopher. Eddie wondered if he even cared about Shannon.

“You evil bastard.”

The man’s eyes turn black but Eddie doesn’t waste any time. He yanks his arm out of his father’s hold and spins around, ready to hightail it back to the bottom of the ship to find Buck.

“Eddie!” his father calls out. 

Rupert catches his shoulder and forces him back. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“What I should’ve done from the start. I’m getting Buck.” He fights to get his arm out of Rupert’s hold but the man seems to grip on tighter. Ramon catches up to them.

“Edmundo!” his father snaps. “You would throw your life away for some gutter urchin?”

Eddie shakes his head with a humourless laugh. “Better a life in the gutter, than staying in this fucking prison.”

“Edmund, I will  _ ruin  _ you—!” Rupert wrenches him forward, spittle flying into his face. His face wild, and hair blowing out of it’s perfectly gelled form to fly into his eyes.

Eddie pivots hard and punches Rupert right in the face.

Ramon’s yell is heard only in the wind as Eddie sprints back inside and towards the stairs. Fuck, he never should’ve let the officers take Buck away. Stupid,  _ stupid,  _ he chastises himself. There is so little time to get him out of wherever they’re holding him and if he can’t get to him in time—if Buck drowns before he can reach him—Eddie doesn’t know what he would do. He would never be able to forgive himself. 

He finds himself on the dining room floor at the foot of the grand staircase and runs smack into Mr. Andrews.

“Mr. Andrews!” Eddie shouts. “Please—” he tries to catch his breath. “Please, where would you keep a prisoner locked on the ship?”

“What? Eddie, now is not the time,” Mr. Andrew nudges him forward, trying to herd him out of the room. Under his breath he adds. “Eddie, I don’t wish to alarm, but you need to get back upstairs and get on a boat.”

“I know the ship is going down,” Eddie barks, nearly coughing for breath. “I know and I need to free Buck who’s been locked away somewhere on this ship. I will search for him with or without your help, but your help would make it a lot faster.”

Mr. Andrews stares at him hard. “Buck. That was your friend from the other night?”

Eddie nods. Mr. Andrew purses his lips solemnly. “Okay, here’s where you need to go.” He begins barking out directions, and if it weren’t for Eddie’s experience grasping orders at the drop of a hat, he might have forgotten some of the directions in the hustle. “And Eddie...once you have him, don’t waste any more time. Get to a boat.”

Eddie takes a deep breath and nods once again. “He’s not a waste of time. But we’ll try.”

Mr. Andrews grasps Eddie’s arm firmly, but not unkindly. Eddie sees it for what it is. A goodbye. “Good luck, Eddie.”

With that, Eddie runs.

*

Buck stands against the wall inside the brig. It isn’t really a jail, rather it looks like a storage room of some sort, but handcuffs lock his wrists tightly against a pipe. His captor, who looked like he might’ve been a junior officer, had long since abandoned the room. Once the water began to overtake the porthole at eye level, the man could not have fled faster.

When the water begins seeping in underneath the door, Buck knows he isn’t getting off of this ship alive. No one is coming for him. Eddie—

It hurts too much to even think about. The look of betrayal on Eddie’s face in his cabins, like he had actually believed Buck would steal from him, would trick him like that. It hurts more than the over-growing realization that he is going to die soon.

Still, when the water reaches his shoes, Buck has no choice but to stand atop the chair and scream for help. He knows no one is listening, no one would be crazy enough to go to the  _ bottom  _ of the ship when the only way to safety is up. Still, maybe if someone hears, someone might be able to help. It is a better prospect than drowning at any rate.

But what will become of him if he is rescued? What is waiting for him up top? Eddie and Christopher are first class passengers. They will have priority to get off the ship, and likely have already. They could be gone for all Buck knows and he is left here. 

Left behind, again.

And he really thought that things would be different this time. That he had finally found someone who would choose him. That would want him for longer than the time it took to make them come.

That’s all he is good for. He knows that. 

He just really hoped that he would’ve been proven wrong this time. He should be used to disappointment by now.

“Hello!” Buck shouts out again, voice cracking this time, as the water begins rising closer to the bench. He hunches his back over, ducking his head below the ceiling. “Can anybody hear me?! HELLO?”

Silence.

Buck hits his head against the pipe. This is the end for him. He is never getting to New York, never getting back to Pennsylvania. He will never see his mother or his sister again, or his niece that Buck had received a picture of in the last letter she sent.

He will never see Eddie or Christopher again. And the last memory he would have of them would be the pain in Eddie’s eyes and the fear on Christopher’s face.

God, could he never do anything right?

“HELLO?!” Buck screams out again. “Can anybody hear me? I’m still alive down here!”

“BUCK!” comes a distant voice.

Buck’s brow furrows. Was that—? “Eddie?” 

“Buck, where are you?!” Eddie’s scream echoes through the empty corridors.

Relief punches him in the gut so hard he nearly throws up. “Eddie! EDDIE, IN HERE!”

“Buck!” Not two seconds later, Eddie slams through the door. He has an axe in hand, like he had come prepared to fight anyone who stepped in his way. 

Why is he still so in love with this man? Hadn’t he learned his lesson yet?

“Buck!”

“Eddie, what—what are you doing here?” Eddie slogs his way through the water, now at hip level. “I thought you would’ve gotten off the ship by now.”

“No, not without you,” Eddie bites out, finally making it to Buck. He yanks on the chains of his handcuffs. “Fuck, do you know where they left the key?”

Buck shakes his head. “No, I—I think the guy took them when he left.”

“Fuck,” Eddie swears again. “Okay, uh—”

“You shouldn’t have come back for me,” Buck sighs. “Eddie, what about Christopher? You have to go back and—”

“He’s already on a lifeboat.” Eddie looks around himself, like he was trying to figure out how to get him out still.

“Just go, Eddie,” Buck rests his head against the pipe again, defeated. “You don’t need me. I was just another opportunity to you—” 

Eddie reels back like Buck had slapped him. "What? No! No, you were  _ never _ just an opportunity, Buck, how could you say that?” He strides forward, grasping Buck’s head in his hands and pressing a fierce kiss to his mouth. “You’re  _ not  _ just someone I decided to have an affair with. Don’t you get it, Buck? You’re—” He pauses, searching Buck’s eyes for a moment. “You're a path."

"A what?" 

"You're a path.” Eddie lets out a harsh and breathless laugh. “Damn the path that my mother and father forced me to take, damn the path Shannon and her father want me to continue on! Damn them all! You're my path. You're not just an opportunity, you're the path I want to take. The path I choose for myself."

Buck hates the fact that tears are falling down his face right now. “Fuck,” he bites out, but it’s anything but bitter. The tears are filled with nothing but relief. Relief and the deepest, most leg-buckling joy. “Fuck, I love you.”

Eddie turns and grabs his axe. “I fucking love you too. So stop trying to get me to leave and hold still! I’m getting you out of here.”

Buck holds his wrists out as far apart as he could. He doesn’t need to shut his eyes, or worry that Eddie will hurt him. Buck doesn’t know if either of them will make it off the ship still, but with Eddie, at least Buck has one more reason to try.

Eddie swings once and hits the metal dead on. The chains snap off. 

“Now come on!” Eddie grabs him down, but Buck swoops into him and kisses him hard, and over and over again. Eddie drops the axe to grasp Buck’s arms.

“Kiss me when we make it off this damn ship,” Eddie smiles breathlessly into one last kiss.

Buck doesn’t need to be told twice. Getting out of the room, pushing past all of the floating furniture is tougher than it looks, but once they make it out into the hall, the water is only flowing forward endlessly from the other side.

“Which way did you come from?” Buck asks. 

The pair of them have to reach up and grab hold of the pipes above their heads to keep from getting washed down the hall. Eddie throws his head in the direction of the rising water. “That way! Fuck, we gotta try another direction.”

“Come on! This way.” They begin making their way in the opposite direction, the current helping them along until they reach a set of stairs. They almost slip past it, but Eddie catches himself on the wall, and drags himself forward, grasping Buck’s arm to help haul him up. Absolutely drenched and freezing, they slog up the stairs until they reach the top and slam into a set of iron gates. “Fuck!”

Eddie throws his body weight against the gates, and some of it comes off its hinges but not enough. Buck looks up, seeing the pipes hanging above. 

“Hang on!” Buck heaves himself up, swings his legs for momentum and then flings himself at the gate, feeling it collapse under his weight. He sprawls over the ground but Eddie quickly helps him up and they take off together, hand in hand, a perfect mirror of running from Lovejoy earlier that evening, only now they were running from an inevitable icy death.

They come upon a large gathering of people, all third class passengers, among the main stairwell leading from third class up onto the main third class deck. People are yelling and screaming, a myriad of languages fighting to be heard over each other. At the top of the stairs Buck could see three officers standing before locked gates. 

“They’re locking the third class passengers down here,” Eddie says, looking as enraged as Buck felt. “How could they just—force this death upon these people—”

“Come on, we’ve gotta find another stairwell. We’ll break through a wall if we have to.” He takes Eddie’s hand and they turn in the other direction. 

“Maybe let me break through the wall this time. Give your shoulder a break,” Eddie snarks, the joke falling flat but Buck doesn’t mind. If Eddie needs to make a joke to quell the panic from taking over, then so be it.

“Buck!” Josh’s voice calls out from somewhere behind them. 

Buck is nearly plowed over by Josh when he turns around. “Josh, hey!”

“Buck, the boat is sinking and they aren’t letting anybody upstairs.” Josh pants, Tommy coming up beside him.

“We’re finding another way up,” Eddie tells them. “Come with us.”

“Lead on,” Tommy says, grabbing hold of Josh’s hand and pulling him along behind Eddie and Buck who lead the way. 

They find a smaller stairwell, this one with only a thin group of people begging yet more stewards to let them through the gates.

Buck and Eddie wiggle their way up and through the throngs of people. Eddie pounds on the gate. “You can’t keep all these people down here! The ship is sinking!”

“Please wait until the third class passengers are called up!” The man yells back in his face.

“It’s women and children first,” Eddie yells back equally as loud. “There are women and children down here. At least let them through.”

“Stay back, sir!”

“AUGH!” Eddie slams both hands down on the gate. “You think any of those rich motherfuckers care whether you live or die? You will drown with the rest of us, you fucking bastard!”

The man pulls a gun and points it right at Eddie’s chest. “Stay  _ back,  _ I said! Or you won’t live long enough to drown!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Buck moves to stand in front of Eddie, but the shorter man, absolutely fuming turns to him. 

“We can’t let them lock us down here. We  _ can’t.”  _

Buck takes his face in his hands. “And we’re not.” Buck turns to look behind him at the bench he had noticed beside the walkway when they made their way up. “You with me?” Eddie looks over and catches his drift.

“I’m with you.”

The two of them shove over and take either side of the bench. 

“Stand aside!” He hears Josh and Tommy swearing from behind them, pushing people out of the way.

Together, they manage to lift the heavy bench up and they make their way to the gate. The stewards, realizing there is nothing more they can do, abandon their post and flee down the hall.

“Cowards!” Buck shouts after them. To Eddie, he calls. “On three! One, two—”

They slam the bench into the gate once, twice and then it’s down.

Buck jumps back down and quickly turns to the woman with two children who had been hovering behind him. “Come on, up you go!” He takes her hand and helps her over the bench and then grabs her older toddler and helps lift him over to join her. “Run!” He and Eddie tag team, helping people up and over the bench and then Eddie tells him to wait. He rushes back down the stairs and from the bottom, puts his fingers between his lips and lets out a piercing whistle.

“Gate’s open over here! Come over here!” He screams to the hoards of people trying to get through the main gate. 

Buck could practically hear the stampede coming their way. Eddie darts up the stairs, and with no one left in the immediate area to help, they take off before the rush of people from the main stairway flooded the narrow staircase. Somehow they manage to make it up to E deck, with swarms of people from third class flowing up behind them. 

Below them, the water is steadily rising.

  
  


*

**_Forty five minutes until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

The arctic night air does nothing to calm his frantically beating heart. They make their way back up onto the deck, but now with more people knowing what is going on, the more people are panicking and trying to find a lifeboat that would let them on.

One look behind him and he could see that the bow of the ship is already mostly underwater. They clasp hands and begin making their way forward, but where could they go? No life boat would take two fully grown men when there are still hundreds of women and children not aboard yet.

They’re almost back where Eddie had left the lifeboat that had taken Christopher, Shannon and Helena. Eddie could rest easy, at least knowing that Christopher is safe. At least Christopher has escaped with his life, even if it means Eddie’s dream of him, Christopher and Buck traveling the country in their own adventure would never come to fruition. He prays that Shannon would be kind to Christopher after this, after losing his father and grandfathers, he prays Shannon will raise their boy with love in his memory—

Buck stops out of nowhere and Eddie nearly runs straight into him.

“Buck, what—?”

“DADDY!”

Eddie’s entire heart sinks to the bottom of the north atlantic. 

There, standing off to the side, avoiding a large crowd of people, is Bobby and another crew member. In his arms is a kicking Christopher.

A whine from deep within him bubbles up his throat. “Oh, dear God, please no.”

“Daddy!” Christopher jumps from Bobby’s arms and Eddie collapses forward, his arms thrown tight around Christopher’s small frame.

“Chris!” Eddie barks the name. He hates himself at that moment. Hates himself because he’s never been happier to see his son and at the same time, he’s never been more scared in his life. He slams kisses onto Christopher’s face and cheeks and hair and the little boy cries into his shoulder. “What happened? Bobby, what happened? How is he here? How?! He’s supposed to be safe on that lifeboat!”

Bobby’s face is full of sorrow. “He...he jumped from the boat.”

Christopher bursts into tears all over again. “I couldn’t leave you! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Chris, oh my god,” Buck gasps, staring at the little boy in a mixture of terror and amazement.

“He got out of Shannon’s hold and jumped,” Bobby explains. “Nearly right after you left. Thank God, he was close enough to us that we could catch him, but he slipped on his crutches and we had no choice but to pull him back on board. Shannon was screaming bloody murder. Eddie, I’m so sorry. I tried to get him onto another life boat but he’s been hitting us with his crutches if we even tried.”

“Christopher,” Eddie groans. “Why would you do that? Buddy, I told you you needed to stay with your mom. I know you’re scared but this ship is not safe for you.”

Christopher looks up into his face, struggling to maintain eye contact. “I want to be with you, dad. Always. Even if we die.”

Eddie stares at Christopher, his eyes filled with tears that won’t fall. He looks up at Buck who is staring at Chris and at Eddie with trepidation. Buck forces out a wild breath but there’s a disbelieving smile on his face, like he couldn’t understand how Christopher had done this either. Christopher has chosen Eddie over his entire family. Eddie doesn’t know if Christopher truly understands what is happening, how fast the ship is sinking and how desperately Eddie needs to see him safe.

_ Even if we die. _

Eddie will not let that happen.

He picks Christopher up. “Bobby, are there any other boats still boarding?”

Bobby tells them that Athena and May are on the other side of the ship, waiting to get on and motions for them to follow him. There is no dillydallying to be done now, they run as fast as they can. 

The officers are still calling for women and children but at that point they are trying to get anyone on who could fit. The boat is almost half way under and it is starting to tilt. If it sank any further, the rest of the ship is going to get dragged under, whether they are on a lifeboat or not. 

Athena and May are standing near the lifeboat and Athena gasps and crushes Bobby in a hug as soon as she sees them. “Thank God, you found them and made it back in time.”

“I’m so sorry, Athena,” Eddie grunts out. 

“Don’t be. You’ve got a loyal boy there.” She turns to Buck with an appraising look, then back to Eddie. “He gets it from his daddy.”

“Edmundo!” a voice calls from behind them. Eddie turns, surprised to find his dad and Rupert still on the ship. They haven’t gotten off already with their bribery? Serves them right. His dad stops short upon seeing Christopher. It assuages Eddie only slightly to see how green his father looks at the sight of Christopher still on the ship and not with Shannon on the lifeboat.

“You two need to get on the boat,” Rupert says, moving forward. “Eddie, you too. In case anything happens, you have to be there for Christopher.”

“Oh and you care about what happens to Christopher now, is that right?” he nearly spits in Rupert’s face. He doesn’t care if his son-in-law and grandson survive. No, he only cares that his  _ heirs  _ survive. Absolutely nothing has changed since he had socked Mr. Kelley in his face. “Kindly shut the fuck up.”

“Eddie!” his father gasps.

Buck pulls Eddie and Christopher off to the side, Bobby holding Rupert and Ramon off.

“Buck, listen to me, I—”

“Eddie, you need to get on that boat.” Buck says, his voice low but firm. Eddie makes to butt in, but Buck takes Eddie’s face in his hand again, the other hand smoothing gently over Christopher’s hair. “You need to get on the boat and save yourself and Christopher.”

Eddie is at a loss for words. He knows Buck is right, knows it deep inside, but he just—he just  _ can’t  _ go without Buck. Not after he just got him back. Not after they had just found each other. Not after Eddie had given him his heart and soul. 

“Please,” Buck’s voice is gravelly, like he’s trying to hold back tears. “You said it yourself. Christopher belongs with you. There’s only so little time left before this ship goes down and you and Christopher need to get as far away as you can before the ship sucks you under.”

“Buck,” Eddie’s voice cracks. “I can’t—I need—”

“You  _ can.”  _ Without a care to who is watching, Buck presses his lips firmly to Eddie’s. Eddie almost folds over. Would he never get to taste these lips again? Would he never feel Buck’s arms around him, feel his warmth swallowing him whole? “Christopher needs you, Eddie.”

Eddie bites down on his cheek hard to keep from crying. “And what if I need you, huh? What if I can’t do this without you anymore?”

Buck blinks and a couple of tears fall down his face. In the distance, Eddie hears the sounds of violins playing. It is a soft and sad song that Eddie thinks he recognizes but can’t name.

“You will,” Buck says, then leans forward and kisses Christopher on the head. “You take care of your dad, buddy.”

“Buck…” Christopher says with tears streaming down his face and for once, Christopher lets go of Eddie and reaches for Buck. Eddie watches as the loves of his life wrap their arms around each other and Buck whispers something in Christopher’s ear and his boy nods emphatically. Buck shuts his eyes tight, all the pain he refused to let Christopher see on his face, and then he kisses Christopher on the cheek and hands him back to Eddie. 

Eddie can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t—

Buck pushes the two of them forward and yells to the officer. “Please, we have a little boy and his father. He’s the only one he has left in the world. Please let them both on,  _ please. _ ”

Perhaps it’s the look on Buck’s face. Perhaps it’s the way Christopher clings to Eddie like a lifeline that convinces the officer to let them pass. Eddie tries to stop the hands gripping at him, trying to lift him into the lifeboat. He turns back to Buck.

Rupert and Ramon come up on either side of Buck. “Go, Eddie,” Rupert says. “We will get Buck on another boat with us. Isn’t that right, Bobby?” Rupert turns to the man who doesn’t look like he has any more say in it than Buck. “We have an arrangement.”

Buck believes it just as much as Eddie does, he’s sure. 

Athena grabs a hold of Eddie’s hand. “Come on, baby. We’re almost launching. Let’s go now, it’s alright.”

Eddie, numbly, is led into the boat, Christopher sitting on his lap. It rocks as the men heave the boat down. Eddie looks up at Buck, their eyes lock as the ship begins lowering. He can see it in Buck’s eyes. He knows it as surely as Eddie had been sure earlier, when he had thought he was saying goodbye for the last time to his son. Buck knows, as well as Rupert and his father, as well and Eddie and Athena, that Buck is not getting off this ship. Not with his life.

Buck gives him a soft smile, his blue eyes somehow glowing as if there is a halo around his head. A guardian angel, a gift from the world given to Eddie when he needed it most. A martyr. Why does it have to end like this? Why is it that the minute Eddie decided he would do right by himself, right by Christopher, the world decided that that dream must die before it even has a chance to live.

Christopher wriggles until he is sitting next to Eddie on the bench. 

“Daddy?” Christopher says softly. Eddie can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from Buck, but he does for his son.

“Chris?” His voice is nearly gone, and there must be something on his face because Christopher reaches for Eddie’s hand. 

“Daddy...you have to go back to Buck,” Christopher says. Eddie’s mouth drops open. He looks up at Athena who is pretending not to listen but so clearly is. Their eyes meet for a moment before Eddie looks back at Christopher. 

“Chris, I…” Eddie starts to shake his head.

“ _ Listen  _ to me, dad,” Christopher says, and this time, he reaches up and takes Eddie’s face between his hands. “You and me saved each other, right?”

Eddie nods, holding onto Christopher’s chilled hands on his face, trying to warm them up but also trying to gain some sort of anchor. He feels like he is falling over the edge of the world. “You’re his best friend. We already saved each other, daddy. Now you and Buck gotta go save each other.”

Eddie can’t stop the tears from falling now. “Chris—”

“I’ll be okay,” he says, and then hugs his dad tight. “Go, dad. Tell Buck I’m sorry.”

Eddie crushes his boy to him as tight as he can. He kisses Christopher’s head and his cheeks and his hands and cries as he takes his baby’s face in his hands to look at him. “I swear to you, I will come back for you. I will  _ always  _ fight to come back to you.”

“I know, dad,” Christopher says with a teary smile of his own.

“I love you with everything in me,” Eddie chokes out.

“Dad,  _ go.” _

Athena pipes in and says, “You come find us if you can. If we don’t see you….we’ll take him to his momma.”

Eddie nods his undying thanks to her. He then turns and looks back up at Buck. He is about two decks below where Buck is now, but his face is still clearly in view. Buck must see the decision on his face, because his eyes widen and he shakes his head wildly. Begging Eddie not to do what he is about to do.

But too bad. Buck doesn’t get to make that decision. Eddie does, and he is choosing to go back. Choosing to fight for his family, just like he told Chris. He will see this through to the very end. 

Eddie stands and calls I love you to Christopher one last time. 

Then, he jumps.

*

**_18 minutes and 41 seconds until_ ** **Titanic** **_sinks_ **

Buck flings himself down the stairs, nearly colliding head first with two men in suits, but he doesn’t care. He shoves past them, ignores their yell of “by, jove!”, ignores the screams of other guests as the water begins to rush up the stairwell. The dining room is nearly flooded now, but Buck races against it, until he gets to the lower deck that Eddie had jumped onto.

Eddie jumped back onto the ship. He came back...for Buck. The thought nearly bowls him over but he can’t think until he has Eddie in his sights again. 

It only takes a few more minutes, and then Eddie is crashing into him like a train. He is crying, his face wet with tears and snot and salt water and he is kissing Buck.

Buck loves this stupid fucking man so much. He wasn’t supposed to jump. He wasn’t  _ supposed to fucking jump! _

“I told you not to jump!” Buck squawks over the lump in his throat. “Eddie, what the  _ fuck?  _ What about Christopher? This is idiocy, you have to go back with Chris!”

“You think you’re the only one who gets to do dangerous rescues?” Eddie pulls back and Buck stares at Eddie’s in crazed wonder. Eddie looks guilty all of a sudden.

“He told me to,” Eddie admits. “I only jumped...because Christopher told me to.”

Buck can’t even begin to process those words. “He...Chris told you to?”

Eddie takes Buck’s face in his hands. “Christopher is safe with Athena. He’s on a boat and he has his whole life ahead of him. Me? I only began living the minute I met you and I will be  _ damned  _ if I leave you now. I’ve got your back, remember?”

God is a cruel and spiteful deity, to give Buck Eddie, to give Buck Chris, and to have them choose  _ him,  _ over everyone else, only to sink their chances at a future, at a family, with a goddamned iceberg.

Buck nods frantically, crying openly now. “Yeah, I—I guess you do.”

Eddie kisses him deeply. “And you’ve got mine.”

“I’ve got you.” Buck wraps his arms around Eddie. 

A shot rings out from behind them and instinctively, Buck throws Eddie to the floor beneath his body. Panicked screams fill the air, and Buck looks back to see what the fuck just happened. Standing there with a shotgun is Rupert, bloody murder in his eyes.

“How  _ dare  _ you disobey me!” He howls to the wind. 

Buck and Eddie scramble up and make a mad dash for it. 

“You father begged me,  _ begged me,  _ to let you marry my daughter, and this is what I get in return?” Rupert chases after them, even as Buck and Eddie round the corner into the dining room that’s up to their knees in water. 

If they could just get back up to the top deck. If they could just get away from that  _ lunatic. _ By now the ship is tilting to a dangerous degree, and they are going to fall if they don't make their way to the very back of the ship  _ now. _

Up on the top deck, they manage to lose Rupert in the shuffle.

“We gotta get to the stern!” Eddie shouts. They’re running as fast as they can past people screaming and falling. It’s like running up Mount Everest without a harness but they keep on. They make a cut through the main first class sitting room and Eddie slams to a halt when they spot Mr.Andrews just standing there, looking at the clock on the mantel.

“Mr. Andrews,” Eddie breathes.

The man looks up and smiles when he sees Buck standing with Eddie. “I’m glad you were able to get him.”

“Sir…” Buck starts but Mr. Andrews shakes his head. He looks down at the life belt in his hands and then hands it to Eddie. “This is my fault. It means nothing, but I have to say it to someone. I am so sorry.”

Buck can’t help but feel sorry for this man. Had he known that he would curse the ship to sink by claiming it “unsinkable” perhaps he would’ve made it out of sturdier material than iron. 

Eddie tries to refuse the life belt but Buck takes it for him and forces it onto Eddie.

“Buck—”

“You’re getting home to Christopher. No matter what.”

And Eddie can’t argue with that. There’s no more time to waste. With one final nod at Mr. Andrews, they continue their journey to the stern of the ship. There are so many people, all of them trying to hold onto something, all of them trying to hold onto their lives. People are falling from the ship everywhere the eye can see.

The lights flicker, for one moment, and then two, before they come back on.

They’re nearly to the stern when another shot rings through the night.

Pain rips through Buck’s shoulder and if it hadn’t been for Eddie catching him, Buck would’ve slipped and likely would’ve gone sliding towards the bottom of the boat.

“Buck!” Eddie screams out. He cracks his neck turning to see Rupert, still chasing after them.

“You are the  _ worst  _ goddamn mistake I ever made!”

Eddie helps Buck up and they haul themselves up and over a set of railing onto the innermost side of the ship. It would at least stop them from slipping. 

The pain is overwhelming and Buck’s vision begins to spot but he forces his eyes open. He cannot pass out now, not when he needs to make sure Eddie makes it out alive.

Rupert is struggling to hold onto a beam, with one hand still on the trigger of his gun.

“You think you can do this to me and still be happy? Think again—”

He is cut off when a man loses his grip on the railing and goes flying down the hull. He knocks, accidentally, into Rupert and without a strong grip, Rupert goes sliding down the wooden floor of the hall. About half way down, just before the middle of the ship hit the water, Rupert caught himself on the ledge, stopping his rapid descent.

“Oh fuck,” Eddie huffs out. He then rounds on Buck, trying to pull his shirt to the side to check his arm. “Buck, let me see. Shit, that doesn’t look good.”

“Hurts,” Buck grits out, because  _ God  _ it’s like his entire arm is being ripped off. It throbs so much, Buck thinks he might vomit, and then pass out. He has to swallow it down. They still have a mission. They have to get to the very outermost railing of the stern. They have to stay out of the water for as long as possible. 

“Buck, you know I was a medic. I can help!” Eddie tries to strip off his life belt as if to use it as a tourniquet for Buck’s arm.

“Don’t you dare,” Buck clamps his hand down and then forces himself up. “We don’t have time for this, Eddie.” He ignores the pain, somehow, miraculously, and forces himself to stand up. Eddie grips him around the waist and helps to haul him forward until they manage to climb all the way up to the outermost railing. Now they are exactly where they had been when they had first met.

“Oh god,” Eddie breathes out, and first helps Buck to climb over the railing, onto the back, before throwing an arm around Buck’s waist to hold on to the railing himself. “This is where we first met.” Somehow he manages a wet chuckle. “It’s my turn to save you now.”

“Hold on!” Buck shouts, as behind them the sounds of ropes crack and slam into the water. Buck manages to keep his eyes open, bites his tongue hard to keep himself from fainting. He thinks only about how this can’t be his last moment, it can’t be his last moment. 

Four loud explosions from beneath them sound and Eddie squeezes Buck harder. 

The funnel closest to the bow of the ship explodes and falls, rocking the whole ship. The stern has risen so far out of the water Buck could barely turn his head and see how far they are from the bottom. Somewhere farther down, he can’t see Rupert anymore. 

The lights flicker once more and then all the light is gone.

The screams that light the night burn hotter than the sun.

The ship cracks in half and for one long moment, they are falling through the air. He squeezes Eddie so tight he worries for a split second that he may break his spine. They stern smacks down into the water hard, and a wave of ocean splashes over everyone desperately clinging to the ship. Drenched and terrified, Buck and Eddie watch as the last two funnels topple. 

The weight of the water and the funnels drag the rest of the ship down and they begin listing to the right.

“Eddie, hold on to me!” Buck screams. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand!”

“I won’t let go!” Eddie calls back.

They’re going down fast. Water is rushing up and up and up.

Twenty seconds. The last thing he hears as the ocean swallows them whole is Buck’s name on Eddie’s lips.

*

Pain.

A thousand knives.

Burning, like Eddie is drowning in magma rather than in water.

He holds on for as long as he can, but the water has its hands wrapped around Eddie’s waist and it’s pulling, pulling, sucking Eddie away from Buck with all its strength. Eddie opens his mouth to scream, to call Buck’s name, and water shoves it’s way down Eddie’s throat. 

At last the water yanks Eddie’s hand out of Buck’s and he’s ripped away, so far away. He struggles against its icy grip. For Buck, for Christopher. He will make it out alive. He and Buck will make it out alive. He has to believe that, and he has to fight. Even though he can’t tell which way is up and which way is down, he fights and fights, kicking and screaming and choking until, somehow, ages later, his head emerges above water.

All he can do is cough and spit and choke up all the water in his lungs and mouth. Once his airway is clear once more, there’s only one thing he can do.

“BUCK!”

The screams of the drowning all sound the same.

_ Swim, Eddie. You gotta move. _

Staying in one place means certain death, and so he forces himself to move his arms and then his legs and he strokes until he finally moves forward, inch by inch, screaming Buck’s name the entire time. 

“Buck!” he repeats, over and over, like a mantra. “Buck, where are you?!”

He keeps swimming and screaming, swimming and scream until—

“EDDIE!”

Eddie spins around and there Buck is. They swim towards each other, shoving past people until Eddie is able to plow into Buck and wrap his arms around him. 

“We gotta get away from the crowd!” Buck yells above the symphony of screams. “Swim!”

They paddle as far away as they can. Eddie has to shove people off who try to latch onto them. They try to grab for Eddie most often, probably because there are more people in the water without life belts than there are with. 

When they get a safe distance away, Eddie spots something in the water. “Buck, over there!”

They swim towards it and find a large piece of driftwood, something that looks like it probably broke off from the ship, but he can’t tell. But it is large, and best yet—it is floating. 

Buck knocks on it. “This is pine! Pine is buoyant!” Somehow Buck’s face lights up with the knowledge, and Eddie can’t believe he can find a moment in all of the terror to smile at the way Buck rattles off information about how water is denser than pine and if they can somehow manage to distribute their weight evenly while getting on, they could both reasonably get on and keep most of their body out of the water. 

Buck directs Eddie to the other side of the driftwood and then reaches an arm out to take hold of Eddie’s. He notices how Buck flinches and nearly draws his arm back in.

“How bad is it? The gunshot?” Eddie asks.

“I’ll live,” Buck answers. “Quick, reach one arm up and we’ll use each other’s weight to get on at the same time.” Eddie follows his directions and somehow, slowly, they manage to wriggle on top of the pine, scooting closer and closer to each other until they could situate their arms and legs in the best position to keep their body weight distributed evenly and keep out of the water. 

Eddie breathes out hard. “B-Buck?”

Buck sniffs and scoots as close as he can until their hands are able to clasp. “F-Fancy meeting you here.” 

Eddie wheezes a small laugh, and it hurts. It hurts so bad, and he can only imagine the pain Buck must be in, how much blood he’s lost.

‘’Buck, y—” he gulps as his hand travels up to Buck’s shoulder. “You gotta let me—l-look at your shoulder.”

“I’m okay, Eddie, really.” Buck takes his hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it with freezing cold lips. “I’m okay, love.” Buck begins to close his eyes. “I just wanna...rest my eyes a little.” Eddie has to shake him and berate him to keep his eyes open.

“You’re not okay,” Eddie shakes his head. “Losing a lot of b-blood will only drop your body temperature f-further. You could go into shock. I have to s-stop the bleeding.”

“I swear I won’t let the sh-sharks get to you,” Buck jokes again, and Eddie would honestly deck the man for joking around at a time like this if he wasn’t so fucking in love with him. He berates Buck to keep his eyes open yet again.

Buck opens his eyes and then lifts his hand, the injured arm, to run his finger over Eddie’s frozen face. “You gotta stay alive, Eddie. You gotta get back to Christopher.”

Unsurprisingly, it’s anger that wells in Eddie. “Don’t start talking like this. Like you’re dying. Don’t you fucking dare.”

“You gotta keep—keep walking down your own path with him. P-promise me.” 

"Not without you.” Eddie snaps, huffing out breaths of cold, white air. His words seem to freeze as he speaks them. “I told you already. You're my path."

It’s getting harder and harder to move his body. His toes are numb and he can’t really feel his legs anymore.

"Then follow it. Live...and follow that path for me." Buck smiles and Eddie wishes he could move, so he could lean forward, so he could share one more warm kiss with Buck. “Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Buck, stay awake, for the love of Christ,” Eddie begs, trying as hard as he can to move his sluggish arms, to shake Buck and keep him the fuck awake. He manages to get his free arm (the one not currently clutching Buck’s hand in a vise) up to Buck’s shoulder and presses as hard as he can into the bullet wound. He’s just gotta stop the bleeding, just gotta put pressure on it. Keep Buck awake.

“Thank you for c-choosing me, Eddie.” Buck’s breath is so soft, weak, and it frightens Eddie more than freezing to death in the arctic ocean. “No one has ever chosen me before.”

“I choose you, Buck. I choose you. Christopher chooses you. Stay awake, please. Stay awake so we can go get him. He’ll be so happy to see you. He loves you too, you know. He does. He chose you too. You’re it for us, Buck. Please stay awake, please stay awake, please stay awake, please stay awake, please stay…”

*

**_2 and a half hours until the RMS_ ** **Carpathia** **_arrives_ **

“Let us fly, dear,” Eddie sings near silently under his breath. If you could call it singing, if not just mouthing and wheezing dead words. “Where, kid? To the sky, dear. Oh, on your flying machine...Whoa, dear, don't hit the moon. No, dear, not yet, but soon…”

The night is silent. 

At some point, Eddie drifts from begging Buck to stay awake to telling him all of Christopher’s favorite bedtime stories, and then to singing Christopher’s favorite songs.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed. The water is still. Eddie is past the point of being cold. He’s thankful his body has gone numb, because he can’t feel the cold anymore. 

Buck has stopped bleeding, and Eddie is thankful. His eyes are shut, Eddie couldn’t stop Buck from falling asleep, but the last time he checked his pulse it was still beating. Eddie couldn’t remember how long it had been since he checked Buck’s pulse. He should do it again soon. If only his arms would respond to the commands from his brain.

Time ceases to exist. Maybe one second passes, or eight hours. Eddie could fly to the stars and back and perhaps be back before the lifeboats came back for them. He will be just a moment, Buck won’t even notice he’s gone.

There’s a light in the distance. 

_ Oh! My! The moon is on fire! Come Josephine in my flying machine. _

“Buck,” Eddie croaks. “What—?”

The light gets closer, brighter. Eddie hadn’t realized just how fully submerged in darkness they had been. Soon enough, the light shines so brightly in Eddie’s eyes that he has to shut them tight. 

“Buck—”

“Is anybody alive out there!?” he hears a distant voice shout. It’s still  _ too  _ distant, but Eddie hears it. The life boats. They are coming back for them!

“Buck—” Eddie squeezes his hand, or maybe he doesn’t. The effort to move his muscles cost more energy than it took to assume he moved his muscles. “They came back. The lifeboats came back.”

Buck does not open his eyes. “Buck, wake up!” This time he forces himself to move his hand, both the one in Buck’s and the other still pressing down on Buck’s shoulder. “Buck.  _ Buck.” _

Buck does not wake up.

“Buck,” Eddie says again. He shakes his body, detaches his hand from Buck’s shoulder—he thinks part of his skin might have ripped off— and moves it to Buck’s face. 

Solid. No give to his skin at all. Eddie forces himself to breathe. Check his pulse. He doesn’t feel anything. Eddie’s hands are shaking too much, he can’t get a fucking pulse!

“Hold on, Buck, just hold on. The boat is almost here. We’ll get you warm and then—” And then, what? How would he get the bullet out? How would he stitch Buck closed? How would he put the blood that Buck had spilled into the ocean, back into his body?

“Just hold on, Buck. One minute at a time, okay?” It’s what he used to tell Chris when he got hurt or wasn’t feeling well. He just has to take it one minute at a time. If he can make it through the pain for one minute, that is all he has to do. Make it through one minute. And then when the next minute comes along, he just has to make it through that one too. Until eventually, there are no more minutes to get through and the pain will be all gone.

The boat gets closer, but not close enough. It sails on past them.

“No, come back!” Eddie’s hoarse voice isn’t loud enough to get their attention. The officer is still calling out, asking if anyone is still alive out there, but his voice is getting farther and farther away.

Fuck, he needs to figure out a way to get them to come back. He looks around in the nearby water, perhaps for another piece of debris that he could strike against the wood until it made a loud enough sound to draw them back.

His eye catches on something shimmering in the night. There’s an officer in the water, a bit of a distance away, but near enough to them that Eddie could reasonably swim to him. In his mouth is a whistle. 

“Hold on, Buck. I got you, okay? Just wait here, I’ll be back in a second.”

He has to use both hands to pull his left hand out of Buck’s iron grip. When it comes away, Buck’s fingers are still as a statue. 

Eddie ignores this, too focused on his task and rolls into the water. 

It hurts. God, it hurts so _ fucking _ badly. He feels like he’s descended into the pits of hell, but fuck if he wouldn’t walk through fire to get him and Buck out of this alive.

_ I beg the Lord my soul to take. Give me strength now, and when I die, drag me to Hell. Fiery pits or the icey atlantic, there is no difference. I swear my soul to you, Devil, only if you would let Buck live.  _

God had never answered Eddie’s prayers before. Why should now be any different?

He manages to grab ahold of the officer’s whistle, and blows as hard as he can manage. 

All the breath in his lungs. He blows the whistle, certain he would wake all of the creatures of the deep that lived below his kicking feet.

In the distance, the boat stops. The light flings back around in their direction.

The boat is coming back towards them, but Eddie doesn’t stop blowing. 

“HELLO?!”

“Here,” Eddie coughs, then clearing his throat, louder. “HERE!”

The boat comes forward and knocks into the plank Buck was on. “Careful!” Eddie swims over to the plank and grabs onto it, grabs onto Buck’s shoulder.

“Him first!” Eddie grunts as loud as his voice could muster. “Him first!” 

The officer ignores him and three sets of hands on the boat haul Eddie on board. “Wait! Buck, he’s still there. On that plank there. It’s how I—it’s how we—”

He’s fully on board the lifeboat now and someone hands him a blanket. He shrugs it off. “Help me get Buck on board.”

The officer leans over and checks Buck, shining a light directly in his face and reaches over to feel for breath or a pulse. He looks back up at the leading officer and shakes his head.

The officer looks back at Buck with anguish on his face.

“Son...I’m sorry—”

“No, no, Buck’s okay, he’s alive. He was shot and he lost a lot of blood.” Eddie nearly topples the boat, trying to lean over to grab hold of Buck. If these people won’t bring Buck up on the boat, Eddie will do it his damn self.

“Son, I’m—I’m very sorry, but your friend is dead.” The two men who helped him into the boat keep their weight bared down on his shoulders, the third still trying to get him to accept the blanket. 

“He’s—” Eddie croaks weakly. “He was fine a second ago. He just—he’s lost a lot of blood. I’m a medic, he just needs to get warm. Please—”

The lead officer turns to the second and tells him to check again. One more time. Eddie thanks him. The man lingers longer over Buck’s body. 

Eddie leans over, about ready to just get off the lifeboat and rejoin Buck on the plank.

“This man has been dead for at least an hour,” the officer says, his voice grim. “We were too late. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you were too fucking late!” Eddie bites. He leans over towards the boat and down at Buck’s body.

His body.

His soul is no longer there. Eddie touches his cheek, touches his eyes, touches his lips. Not a breath, not a movement. 

He’s gone. 

“We have to move now. In case there’s anyone else alive around here,” the officer says softly and Eddie sits there silently.

Slowly, as the boat begins to row away, Eddie stares at the wood with Buck’s body still laying still on it.

He thinks of the vikings, of how they sent their dead off in boats, not unlike the one Eddie was in right now, and they shot arrows of fire into the air, to set the boat on fire.

Buck won’t sink to the bottom of the sea, not for a while. He will float on, maybe for a while, until one day a wave comes and turns him over into her bottomless deep and Buck’s body will decompose, rejoining the earth.

He stares after where Buck lays until the boat gets too far away for him to see. It’s only then that Eddie lays back down, covered in the blanket. 

He wonders where Chris is, in a nearby boat, waiting for him and Buck to come back to him. Eddie will have to disappoint his son yet again. As they drift further and further into the night, Eddie wonders if it might’ve been better if he had just let himself go, died holding Buck’s hand.

He closes his eyes. It’s only the thought of finding Christopher, of seeing his face again, that keeps Eddie from succumbing to the cold of night, to letting the pain of his broken heart overtake him.

Somehow, he finds the strength to open his eyes again.

*

**_Aboard the RMS_ ** **Carpathia**

Eddie is helped aboard the new ship, blanket wrapped tightly around his head and body. A woman comes forward and places another one over his shoulders. He’s hustled into a crowd of people, some wearing life belts, others still dressed to the nines in the clothes they had been wearing when the ship went down. They are lined up on mats and on benches aboard the decks of the  _ Carpathia.  _

People ask him questions. Hand him tea. Ask him more questions. 

His only thought is finding Christopher. That’s all he can say to anyone. 

“My son—Ch-Christopher…”

A man comes up to him with a clipboard and asks him his name. Eddie doesn’t bother and instead asks after Christopher.

“There’s an officer on the port side of the ship answering passenger inquiries,” the officer tells him, not unkindly. Eddie must not have been the only one to have asked the same thing. “It will help us work faster to reunite who we can if we know your name.”

Eddie nods. The man is right. He has to give his name, it will help him find Christopher. Athena said she would look for him before taking Christopher back to Shannon. 

“Your name, please sir?” The man asks again. 

“Eddie,” he huffs out, the air around him still freezing, turning his breath white. The man waits for a last name. Eddie stares down at his feet. He opens his mouth to say Diaz.

“Eddie…?”

He can’t do it. He can’t say the name. What had once been a point of pride for his abuela, now held nothing but shame for Eddie. 

Eddie Diaz had died on the  _ Titanic.  _ The man who emerged from the lifeboats was someone else.

“Buckley.” 

It feels right. It feels like he still has a piece of Buck with him. 

The man gives him a brief thanks, then directs him again to the other officer surrounded by people looking for their lost loved ones.

Eddie takes a deep breath, setting his shoulders as he moves forward into the crowd. He doesn’t have the strength to push past anybody, not right now. He will wait. In his soul he knows Christopher is alive, he is on this ship somewhere. Or if he hadn’t arrived yet, he would soon.

There’s a woman standing beside him that Eddie doesn’t recognize, but there’s a calmness about her that allows Eddie to feel comfortable enough to ask. “Do you know how many of the lifeboats have come aboard?” 

The woman takes in his form, pity deep in her eyes. “I believe all of them, sir.”

Eddie nods. Christopher is here then. He just has to find him. When the crowd thins enough for Eddie to move forward, a hand grasps his elbow softly from behind.

In Eddie’s heart, he imagines that it’s Buck. That somehow, he had made it out the water. That he had somehow made an oar and rowed his way towards them. Even before he turns around he knows it isn’t Buck, but not for the last time, he prays, and then files the pain away until the day comes that he will see him again.

He turns around.

May Grant stands there, a searching look on her face. “It is you…” she says. “I thought I saw—but I didn’t see…”

He knows what she’s referring to. He can only shake his head, afraid that if he spoke a single word, he would be unable to hold himself back, that his hold on himself since the second he stepped off the lifeboat would completely fall apart.

Her eyes fill with tears and she squeezes Eddie’s arm lightly again. “Bobby didn’t either.”

“Chris—”

“He’s with my mom,” May tells him. “Follow me.”

She leads him away until they come upon a group of survivors near the front most side of the boat. Athena sits on a bench and right beside her, huddled close to her side underneath a blanket, is his boy.

Athena catches his eye first, and she gasps. Christopher sits bolt upright at that, looking around frantically. 

Christopher spots him and for a moment, there’s nothing but pure unrestrained happiness on his son’s face. “DAD!”

He’s up and running as fast as he can on his crutches. Eddie picks up the slack and in less than a moment, he has his son in his arms again.

Why hadn’t the world tilted back into place? Why did he still feel so off-center?

“Christopher,” Eddie croaks, his chin wobbling dangerously. “Christopher.” It’s all he can do, repeat his boy’s name.

“I knew you would make it!” Christopher beams, pulling away finally only to look up into his father’s eyes. Then, Eddie’s heart breaks all over again, as Christopher finally seems to register the look on Eddie’s face.

He looks around Eddie, to his right and then to his left. Slowly he asks. “Where’s...Buck?”

He doesn’t have the strength to keep fighting anymore. He collapses to his knees and clutches Christopher who buries his face in Eddie’s. Eddie lets it all out. He lets all the agony that had been building in him for the past ten years go, lets the pain fall from his eyes, sting his cheeks. Lets the stuttering gasps fill the air, lets the throb of loss and the relief of surviving overwhelm him. His boy holds him tight, like he was the father, and Eddie lets himself feel the guilt, feel how badly he wishes he could give Christopher everything, how he wished to give Buck everything. He sobs for all that he would never have, for all that he and Buck could’ve been. 

For all the life Buck had left to live.

He holds his son, his living, breathing son, and they let it all out. Together.

He cries, and he lets it go. 

But not Buck. Never Buck. Eddie will cry...but soon he will stop, and the day will end, and years will pass, and the pain will fade just slightly. But Buck will live on. He will carry Buck in his soul for as long as it should exist. And when he joins Buck in the stars he will kiss him again and he will be proud to let Buck know that he always,  _ always,  _ chose him.

Athena helps him to his feet some time later, helps him onto the bench, gives him some tea. May goes off to fetch them some food. They have two more days until they make it New York and for now they would all be sharing space until they make it there.

Two days pass, but he can’t bear to ask after Shannon until the very last day

Athena pats his hand. “I saw her and your parents wandering around the first class part of the ship. Didn’t bother to speak to them. They haven’t come down here the entire time.”

That is news to him. “My father made it off?”

She nods. “Don’t ask me how.”

Eddie can’t believe it. His entire family made it. Everyone except Rupert, that much Eddie knew for certain. There was no way he survived the final descent. 

When docking day comes, he feels empty. All of the hope of a new life, of adventure, just the three of them, gone. But just because it can’t be the three of them anymore, doesn’t mean he can’t start a new adventure, a new dream for the two of them.

“Chris?” he asks as they sail slowly past the statue of liberty. “I was thinking about taking another trip. And I was wondering, maybe, if you wanted to come with me.”

Christopher looks up at him, curiosity in his eyes. “Just us? Together?”

Eddie squeezes his boy’s hand. “Together.”

“Really?”

Eddie nods with a small smile, brushing his thumb down Christopher’s nose. 

“Where?” Christopher asks.

Eddie sighs, leaning against Chris, the two of them supporting each other. “Wherever you want to go.”

They dock in less than an hour’s time. It takes a while to unload. The first class  _ Titanic  _ and  _ Carpathia  _ passengers unloading first. The second class goes next, and finally, Eddie and Christopher descend with Athena and May. 

He checks them out as Eddie and Christopher Buckley, and Christopher’s face lights up with delight at the name. 

Back on dry land, the hoards of people looking around and searching in hopes of finding their surviving families nearly drives them into a stampede. They manage to make it out, avoiding the most panicked of people. It’s only when they get the farthest out that Eddie stops in his tracks.

There they are. Shannon and his parents, standing around like they are waiting for someone. Eddie knows who they are looking for. While Shannon and Helena are looking in one direction, Ramon scans the crowd and Eddie stiffens when his eyes land on him and Christopher.

Ramon starts to open his mouth. 

Eddie stops him with a short shake of his head.

Ramon closes his mouth. He looks at them with nothing but guilt on his face. But for once in his life, Ramon makes the decision to do right by his son, and his grandson. He gives them a barely there nod, and then turns away. 

But really, Ramon’s decision is not what Eddie most cares about in that moment.

“Christopher…” Eddie starts to ask, but then he looks down and realizes that Christopher has already caught sight of his mother and grandparents. He looks up at Eddie’s face, and then squeezes his hand, tugging Eddie wordlessly in the direction away from their former family.

Christopher has made his decision. Eddie nods, squeezing his hand back. 

They make their way off of the pier, and neither of them look back. Instead, they look forward, stepping out into the world, on a new path. 

Heading towards a new future.

  
  


*

**_August 1994. 12,500 feet above the_ ** **Titanic.**

The room is silent as Eddie ends his story. They have questions, he knows they do. And he is willing to answer only as much as he feels like. Evie is sniffling, wiping tears from her eyes. Eddie didn’t mean to upset her. He hadn’t really spoken much about his past with her. At least not much about anything before he was thirty. She knew of all of his other adventures. 

She knew that for a few short years, Christopher and Eddie had moved to Pennsylvania, Eddie taking up a construction job while Christopher went to school. What she didn’t know was that Eddie had chosen Pennsylvania to try to search for Buck’s mother and sister. It was what Buck had wanted. His whole reason for wanting to come back to America in the first place. It took nearly a year to find Margaret Buckley. There actually were quite a few Buckley’s of Philadelphia. Eventually, he found her. 

He told her he knew her son, that he had died trying to get back to her, to apologize to her. He didn’t know what had happened between them, and perhaps it was best she didn’t tell him. Instead she cried and disappeared up the stairs. She came down with something in her hand. 

It was a picture of Buck and a postcard.

_ “This was the only letter he sent me. He sent his sister many, but...well. This is the last thing I have of the adult he became. I think you should have it.” _

In it was a picture of Buck. It was black and white and he sat on the back of a work truck filled with lumber. He had a page hat on his head, and a smile on his face. 

_ California. 1909. _

Three years before they met. 

Eddie has never shown anyone that picture. He kept it hidden in a journal that Christopher had bought him for his fifty-fourth birthday. Before that, he had kept it locked in a drawer in his desk. When Christopher died, Eddie buried him with the photo of Buck in his top right pocket. It was only right, to give Buck the final burial he deserved, with a boy who had grown into a man with memories of the man who could’ve become another father to him. 

Eddie hoped that it would lead their souls back to each other.

He hoped they were waiting for him.

After that year in Philadelphia, Eddie and Christopher moved again. Down to Texas, where Eddie was born, and he bought up a ranch with the money he’d earned in Pennsylvania. He bought Christopher his very own horse for his thirteenth birthday. By the time they sold the ranch, years and years later, and moved again, Christopher had over six horses to his name. 

Then they ended up in California where Eddie joined the Los Angeles Fire Department. They stayed there throughout Christopher’s adult life, until Eddie retired. It was where Evie was born. It was where Eddie would’ve stayed until he died had he not been watching the news that fateful morning when his drawing was unearthed.

“So...what happened to Rupert?” Chimney asks. “What happened to everyone else? What about Josh? And Tommy? And that Lovejoy fella?”

“Tommy was shot by an officer, when he and Josh had been trying to help an overturned lifeboat. Josh was crushed by the first fallen funnel.”

“And Rupert? Lovejoy? Or Carla?” Hen asks. “How did your dad manage to get on one of the boats?” 

“Carla was on the same lifeboat as my mother and Shannon, since she was there to help attend Christopher. Last I heard, her granddaughter was attending Harvard.” Eddie smiles at that memory. Carla, as well as Athena and May, were the only people who had lived through the sinking that Eddie had kept in contact with. 

“Lovejoy fell when the boat cracked in half,” Eddie explains, that much he had learned through years of research after the fact, same as how he learned of Josh and Tommy. “And Rupert...well, I suspect he ended up getting sucked down by the water. My father was able to get on one of the last boats off of the ship with the help of Mr. Ismay.”

Hen whistles. 

“And your parents?” Maddie asks. “Shannon?”

Eddie sighs. Yes, he knew the question was coming. He tells them the truth. He hadn’t tried to keep tabs on them, but he had read about it in the newspaper when Shannon remarried. They enjoyed Rupert Kelley’s wealth for some years before the crash of ‘29 brought their empire to an end. That, Eddie believed, was something that was still taught in textbooks.

“I think it’s time we take you to rest, no?” Evie asks, standing up. “It’s been a long, draining day.”

Eddie pats her hand, allowing her to pull his wheelchair out. “Thank you for listening,” he says to the crew of explorers. “And I’m sorry there are some questions I don’t know the answer to. I believe there are some questions about  _ Titanic  _ that will never be answered.”

“Wait, what about—?”

Maddie shushes Chimney quickly, wishing Eddie a good night. 

Eddie smiles at her.  _ Such a kind face,  _ Eddie thinks, wondering if he had met Maddie somewhere before. The thought soon leaves his mind as Evie brings him back to his room.

She helps him get ready for bed, and then tells him she’ll stay with him until he falls asleep.

“You don’t need to do that, love,” he tells her. “We’re on an expedition ship. Go explore.”

Evie’s smiles, her eyes twinkling with a mischievous glint that was all Christopher.

“Alright,” she tells him. “Goodnight, abuelito.” She kisses his forehead. “I love you.”

Eddie pats her hair gently. “I love you too.”

*

Evie joins Hen, Chim and Maddie for a late night drink.

“He really never told you what happened to the heart of the ocean?” Chimney asks her. She shakes her head. Her grandfather was not the chatty type. Evangeline Buckley knew there were decades of stories hidden behind Eddie’s eyes that she would never know. Most of what she had learned had come from her dad. That was how she had learned of grandpa Buck. She had done a research project on her grandfathers and the  _ Titanic _ for her 9th grade history class. She definitely earned that A+.

“It must’ve gone down with the ship,” Maddie murmurs. “If it was last seen in Rupert’s jacket pocket.”

“Maybe it’s best that we didn’t find it,” Hen says. She shakes her head, then looks at Evie. “It wouldn’t feel right. Profiting off of something that brought Eddie so much pain. The necklace isn’t worth selling my soul.”

Evie smiles gently. If only they knew.

“You know,” Maddie says slowly, like she’s thinking something over seriously. “I had a granduncle named Evan. He died on the  _ Titanic  _ as well. That’s how I became so fascinated with the sinking and eventually came to join Chimney’s team on this expedition.”

Evie raises an eyebrow at that. “Your last name is Buckley too, right?”

Maddie nods. “Yeah...my grandmother used to have all of these letters and photos of him and she told me that was how he died but…” Something like realization seems to come over her face. “But everywhere I looked there were no official records of him on the ship.”

“Holy shit,” Chimney blurts out. 

Hen sits there, mouth hanging open. She stares at Maddie. “You don’t think they’re the same—”

“We gotta tell Eddie,” Chimney starts to stand up, but Maddie drags him back down. 

Evie shakes her head. “No, I—I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’s...he’s been put through too much today. Maybe we can tell him tomorrow, but my abuelito needs his sleep right now.” She then turns to Maddie. “But...if you don’t mind, do you happen to have any of those pictures with you?”

Maddie nods her head up and down. “Yeah, actually.”

Maddie’s smile is infectious as she jumps to her feet, and Evie stands, excited to finally meet the grandfather she’d heard so much about. 

*

The accommodations truly are nice on this boat. Chimney had set him up in a room with a small outdoor balcony. It isn’t a private promenade, but it is situated off the side of the boat, with nothing but the endless arctic sea as far as the eye could see.

Eddie had not been back to this spot in almost ninety years. Incredible how much time could pass and the ocean would look exactly the same. The constellations exactly as he remembered, resting on that plank and looking up at the sky, praying that a merciful God who didn’t exist would descend from the stars and rescue them.

Eddie stands in front of the railing, looking out at the black water. 

If he looks far enough, he could almost make out the silhouette of a man lying atop a piece of pine driftwood.

The graveyard below his feet beckons.

Eddie reaches his hand into his pocket and pulls out the heart of the ocean.

_ “Daddy?” Christopher says, as he tugs on Eddie’s sleeve. They are standing together at the bow of the  _ Carpathia _ , one day from reaching mainland. He looks down into his boy’s face. He waits patiently for Christopher to speak. _

_ Instead, the boy says nothing, silently pulling something out of his jacket pocket.  _

_ In Christopher’s small hands is the Heart of the Ocean. _

_ The air rushes from Eddie’s lungs. _

_ “How did—” _

_ “Grandpa gave me his jacket,” Christopher tells him. “Before I got on the lifeboat.” _

_ Eddie takes the diamond from Christopher’s outstretched hand.  _

_ “Rupert gave you the jacket.” Eddie shakes his head in disbelief. “Amazing.” _

_ “What should we do with it?” Christopher asks. “It’s heavy.” _

_ Should he sell it? It would secure the future for him, and for Christopher. Hell, that amount of money would secure Christopher’s children’s future, and maybe even their children.  _

_ This necklace, glittering in between Eddie’s clenched fingers, is worth less than pennies to him. _

_ Why should it survive the sea, when Buck hadn’t? _

_ Eddie pockets the diamond. _

Holding it now, in those same hands, thin and brittle, the deep blue crystal is near the same color as the veins that leap over the bones in his hands. 

This necklace never should’ve made it off the ship. It belongs down there, buried beneath the waves. Buried with those who never had a chance of survival. 

“I kept my promise, Buck,” he says to the sea. 

Holding his hand out over the railing, Eddie lets it go.

*

Eddie emerges from the water.

He is at the stern of the ship, the words  _ Titanic  _ gleaming against the metal like the very first day it was painted. The ship is exactly the same as he remembered it, from his dreams.

He takes a step forward and another, moving through the ship like he is underwater. He walks through the corridors, the sun shining, everything brand new. 

Finally, he comes upon the door to the grand hall where a steward welcomes him in. He walks inside, and is greeted by one thousand, five hundred and eighteen faces. Some he recognizes, and many he doesn’t. 

At the foot of the stairs stands Christopher, nine years old, and smiling like he hasn’t been gone a day.

And perhaps he hasn’t. 

Christopher reaches a hand out, but Eddie ignores it, instead swooping down to wrap his little boy up into a hug. He kisses his cheeks.

“Christopher,” he smiles, the pain of missing his boy all the time gone in an instant.

All he feels is peace.

“Someone has been waiting for you a long time, dad,” Christopher tells him, when Eddie finally sets him down. He takes a hold of Eddie’s hand this time, and leads him up the stairs.

Eddie looks up, and there at the top of the stairs, with his back to him, is a familiar figure. Brown pants and suspenders, a white shirt. Short brown hair that shimmers almost blonde in the sunlight. Broad shoulders, strong and firm, and long legs. Soft hands, creator's hands. The hands that had brought Eddie to life.

He is staring at the clock at the top of the stairs. Neither the hour nor the minute hand have moved.

Christopher walks up the steps beside him, needing absolutely no help. He isn’t in pain anymore, isn’t confined to the limits of his body. None of them are. Eddie doesn’t feel a day over twenty six.

As Christopher leads him up to the last step, the figure turns around.

If Eddie still had lungs to breathe, perhaps he would’ve gasped.

Instead, warmth fills his spirit from every angle. Eighty-four years of sorrow, of guilt, of what if’s... they all wash away.

Buck stretches out his hand. “Hiya, stranger.”

Eddie blinks back tears. He reaches forward, and takes Buck’s hand. His entire life rushes past his eyes, faster than the speed of light, only stopping with the image of Eddie’s hand in Buck’s, trusting Buck to pull him back over the edge.

“Not a stranger…” Eddie tells him, taking yet another step closer. “Never a stranger.”

Buck’s face splits into a smile so big it lights up the entire room. Christopher joins them on the final landing. Behind them, the world disappears. It’s just the three of them. Buck brings a hand down to Christopher’s face, stroking his cheek gently and sending him a wink.

“Somebody’s been keeping me company,” Buck tells Eddie. “We race. He tells me stories.”

“Just until you got here,” Christopher corrects with an excited smile. “Now we can go home!”

Eddie shakes his head, looking deep into Buck’s ocean blue eyes. 

“I’m already home.”

He surges forward and catches Buck’s lips. Buck melts into him and Eddie wraps his arms around Buck’s shoulders. Christopher’s giggles fill the air, and above him Buck and Eddie stay wrapped in each other, kissing, smiling, laughing, crying.

Christopher hugs them both tight, and Eddie rests his forehead against Buck’s, breathing him in. Buck kisses his cheek. 

“You ready?” Buck asks.

The clock ticks behind them, but the moment...it never ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed! If you'd like to follow me on tumblr I am at the same username: sevensoulmates where I talk about 911 a lot (and a lot of other things).


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